Worldwide server market factory revenue increased 4.2% year over year to $12.7bn in the third quarter of 2011, according to the IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker.
This is said to be the slowest quarterly growth rate since the market recovery began in first quarter of 2010.
Though server unit shipments increased 4% year over year in the third quarter, server shipment growth fell slightly from the 8.7% year-over-year shipment growth reported in the second quarter of 2011.
IDC group vice president and general manager enterprise platforms Matt Eastwood said that after nearly two years of steady revenue growth, the server market began to decelerate in Q3 2011 as demand stabilised for many system categories. He added, "Asia/Pacific and Japan exhibited strong revenue growth while server demand in EMEA, North America, and Latin America was flat to slightly down year over year. IDC continues to believe that weakening macroeconomic conditions around the world will serve to further moderate demand for new servers in 2012."
