Posted by New Delhi: After the external storage market posted a 15.6% YoY slump by vendor revenue, the server market revenue in India has also plummeted by 11.2 % YoY in Q4 2020 as per IDC data.
India’s server market declined by 11.2% in terms of revenue to reach $266.1 million in Q4 2020 (Oct-Dec) versus $299.6 million in Q4 2019, as per the latest IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, Q4 2020 (March 2021 release).
The x86 server market contribution grew to 92.9% in terms of revenue, a growth of 4.8 percentage points over last year same quarter. The highest contribution in the x86 market mainly came from the professional services, telecommunications, and manufacturing verticals.
In the professional services vertical, original design manufacturers (ODM) and new-age IT companies witnessed positive YoY growth with respect to the server spend. At the processor brand level, AMD witnessed YoY revenue growth of 4.7 percentage points claiming a revenue share of 8.4% at the end of Q4 2020.
The x86 server market in terms of revenue declined 6.3% YoY to reach $247.2 million in Q4 2020 from $264.0 million in Q4 2019. The contribution largely came from the custom-built server category with revenue growth of 28.7% YoY.
Hyperscalers continues to spend towards building robust data centers and support the global and local customer demands. The Gal-purpose server revenue fell 13.4% due to the weakening demand across different industries. During Q4 2020, verticals such as utilities, resource industries, and securities and investment services witnessed the highest YoY growth in terms of revenue at 331.5%, 218.7%, and 160.6% respectively.
The non-x86 server market declined 47.1% YoY to reach $18.9 million in revenue in Q4 2020. IBM continues to dominate the market accounting for 49.4% of revenue share, during Q4 2020 with $9.3 million in revenue. HPE came at second position followed by Oracle with a revenue share of 27.8% and 8.3% respectively.
In Q4 2020, Dell Technologies emerged as the top vendor in the India x86 server market with a 29.6% revenue share and $73.1 million in revenue. Top three verticals for Dell Technologies were professional services, banking, and discrete manufacturing. HPE came at second spot with 19.5% revenue share and $48.2 million in revenue..
Key verticals for HPE were telecommunications, discrete manufacturing, and professional services. At number three is Lenovo with a 10.9% revenue share and $27.0 million in revenue. Cisco came in fourth with 9.1% revenue share and $22.6 million in revenue.
During 2020, the server market failed to recover as it remains impacted due to the pandemic, according to Harshal Udatewar, Market Analyst – Server, IDC India.
“For 2021, we expect the server market demand to grow across hyperscalers, local data centre players, telecommunication companies, banking and financial institutions, and manufacturing firms. Government pipeline looks promising and can expect to spend in H2 2021,” added Udatewar.
IDC India Forecast
India’s economy is on the verge of gaining momentum post-Covid-19 lockdown and roll out of coronavirus vaccines. From an enterprise spending perspective, IDC anticipates investments in compute to come from global hyperscalers and local DC players, telecommunications vertical, banking sector, and manufacturing vertical.
Telecommunications spending would be focused on network modernization, VAS services and preparing for 5G roll out. At present, India x86 server market is expected to witness a 29.7% YoY growth in value during the period of 2020-2021, according to the latest IDC WW Quarterly Server Forecast, Q4 2020 (March 2021 Release).