According to International Data Corporation (IDC), server market in India declined by 16.8 percent quarter-on-quarter in Q4 2016, with 30,501 units shipped in Q4 2016 as against 36,668 units in Q3 2016. In terms of revenue, there was a 4.2 percent quarter-on-quarter growth registered in Q4 2016, majorly due to the sales of high-density servers.
Enterprise initiative towards digital transformation, analytics, cloud, BI and datacenter consolidation are the key trend observed in Indian server market. Pricing and tailormade solutions has become crucial for the vendors as they are frequently challenged by ODM's and white box players. Amidst of all these industry concerns, ERP upgradation in manufacturing and tech refreshes in banking were the major contributors for server market demand during Q4 2016.
The non x86 server market declined by 31.0 percent quarter-on-quarter in terms of unit shipments and 34.7 percent in terms of revenue in Q4 2016. Banking, manufacturing and telecommunication verticals were the major contributors to the non-x86 market. IBM dominated the market in terms of revenue with the share of 62 percent, at end Q4 2016.
According to Harshal Udatewar , Server Market Analyst, IDC India, "The market corrected itself, owing to the absence of large multi-million dollar deals. Growing SMB's, IT investments from enterprises towards datacenter consolidation are boosting the growth of the server market. Deals from Government towards digitalization, e-governance, smart city and surveillance projects are in pipeline that would fuel the growth of Indian server market in the coming quarters".
According to Rishu Sharma , Associate Manager, Enterprise Infrastructure-,"The Indian server market witnessed a difficult quarter, as organizations continue to consolidate their prevailing workloads on fewer servers. We are also seeing increased acceptance of cloud among the SMBs, resulting in new buyer segments and demand for third party data centers".
Major Vendors
In India x86 market, HPE maintained its leading position in Q4 2016 with 35 percent market share in terms of unit shipment, followed by Dell with a market share of 27 percent. Lenovo's market share dropped from 12 percent to 9 percent year-on year. Cisco's market share increased by 13.6 percent year-on-year, while Huawei and Acer accounted for the market share of 3.3 and 2.7 percent respectively, at end Q4 2016.
On the revenue front, HPE led with 38 percent market share, followed by Dell at 31 percent market share. Cisco registered market share of 10 percent overtaking Lenovo who accounts for 6 percent of market share by revenues during Q4 2016.
IDC India Forecast
The government led digitization initiatives are expected to pick pace and would continue in the coming quarters. SAP HANA opportunities, investments in HPC and DR implementations would pull the market further the coming quarters.
