But while the number of servers shipped in 2006 grow 8.9 per cent to 8.2 million units, revenue growth was significantly lower, growing two per cent last year to US$52.7 billion.
IBM claimed more than 32 per cent of the global server market, growing its revenue 1.7 per cent to nearly US$17 billion, Gartner said. The second largest server vendor, Hewlett-Packard, lost ground in 2006, with revenue down 2.6 per cent to US$15.2 billion.
Of the top five global vendors, only Sun – the third biggest server vendor – gained revenue share for the year. By growing its market share 1.2 per cent to 10.8 percent, Sun reversed a yearly revenue share decline trend that had been occurring since 2001.
Blade servers continue to be the high-growth segment with a revenue increase of 36.5 percent and a shipment increase of 33.0 percent for the 2006.
IBM and HP continued to dominate the blade server market with a combined share of almost 74 percent of the worldwide blade revenue share for 2006.
IBM's leadership position in global server revenue in 2006 was bolstered by strong revenue growth in its System Z mainframe class server business.
"Mainframes are important to our customers today. We believe the launch of the System z Business Class mainframe during the year, as well a $100 million investment to simplify the platform and the uptake of workloads driven by the launch of specialty processors for Linux and Java workloads," IBM senior vice-president Bill Zeitler said
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