European server shipments up 28.8% in Q4 2003

A weakening dollar helped server manufacturers finish off a bumper 2003, with European revenues up by 17.5%. According to IDC's European Server Tracker, Q4 2003 was the second successive quarter showing growth both in terms of units shipped and cash value. Compared to the previous year, the overall value of servers shipped increased by 17.5% to $4.2bn and unit shipments increased by 28.8% to 416,637.

Although IBM enjoyed revenue growth of 30.5%, to $1.75bn, and grabbed top spot in terms of revenue at 41.5%, HP retained its No. 1 position in unit shipments, with a 34.7% increase to 177,238 units, generating $1.2bn. Sun Microsystems' revenue fell 3.5% from last year and Fujitsu Siemens's growth remained stable at 7.2%. Dell managed to take 5.2% of the total revenue after its numbers increased by 13%. IDC analysts warn the figures may be a little deceptive because the US dollar has depreciated against European currencies by about 16%. If this depreciation is taken into account, IDC maintains that revenue growth was positive, but only marginally.

For the whole of 2003, IDC said server sales grew by 6.1% to $13.1bn and shipments rose by 19.2% to 1.3 mil units.