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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scumbria who wrote (53302)	3/23/1999 3:58:00 PM
From: FJB	Respond to of 1570976

Worldwide Server Market Revenues Drop in Q4 1998, Despite Robust Growth in Unit Shipments, According to IDC Pricing Pressure, Weak Asian Economies, and Product Lulls Contribute to Decline Framingham, MA, March 23, 1999 ? Recent fourth quarter 1998 server data released from International Data Corporation (IDC) shows that total worldwide server market revenues declined by 4% from the same quarter a year ago, despite robust domestic and European economies. The drop brings the worldwide server market to a total value of $16.2B for the quarter. The revenue decline was accompanied, however, by a 22% increase in unit shipments year-over-year, highlighting the intense price pressure in the server market. The Western European server market grew by 12.9% in revenues to just over $5.0B, while the Japanese market grew a sluggish 1% when compared with a weak Q497. Server factory revenues in the U.S. declined by 7.5% to $5.6B, down from $6.1B in a record fourth quarter one year ago. Q498 Worldwide Highlights · Servers selling for under $6K posted unit growth of 62% over the same quarter last year, accompanied by revenue growth of 76% year-over-year, largely driven by price declines. · Japanese vendor Hitachi suffered through Q498, with worldwide revenues falling by nearly 28% compared to a very weak Q497. Fujitsu and NEC, also of Japan, eked out growth of 1% over last year's fourth quarter. · Sales of servers running Intel Architecture microprocessors increased by 29% in unit volume and rose 15% in revenues when compared with Q497. Sales of servers running RISC processors increased by 3% in unit volume over last year, though revenue declined by 3% over the same period. · Pockets of the server market continue to return positive growth numbers. For example, total revenue for servers running the NT operating system increased by 28% over Q497. In addition, vendors like Dell and Sun Microsystems continue to excel in their market segments. · Compaq Computer Corp. (including Digital and Tandem) saw revenue growth of just over 1% from the same period last year, despite double-digit revenue growth in the Asia/Pacific region and Western Europe. "The server market in 1998 was defined by price pressure. Whether it was pressure created by early-1998 price cuts designed to unclog sales channels, or the result of the Asian crisis, the net effect was revenue declines for most vendors. The bottom line is, customers bought a lot of servers this quarter at lower than ever price points," said Jim Williamson, Senior Analyst for the Quarterly Server Tracker program. Market Outlook "By the second half of this year, improving economic conditions should boost server investments in the Asia region. We expect that improvement, combined with continued strength in domestic and European economies, to produce market growth beyond the 1998 results," said Steve Josselyn, Research Director for IDC's Commercial Systems and Server Research program. IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker is the premier quantitative tool for analyzing the global server market on a quarterly basis. The Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker includes quarterly shipments (both ISS and upgrades) and revenues (both customer and factory), segmented by vendor, family, model, region, operating system, price band, CPU type and architecture, and channel. To purchase the Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, contact Jim Williamson at 508-935-4542 or at jwilliamson@idc.com. For more information on the Tracker, please visit idc.com. IDC's Web site (http://www.idc.com) contains additional company information,Worldwide Server Market Revenues Drop in Q4 1998, Despite Robust Growth in Unit Shipments, According to IDC