IBM tops Unix server sales in Asia
According to an IDC Quarterly Server Tracker report, IBM posted revenues of US$203.37 million, which translates to a 30.4 percent market share in the region for the quarter.
In the corresponding period last year, IBM made about US$129 million in revenue with roughly 21 percent market share, IDC Asia Pacific associate director (Servers and Workstations research) Avneesh Saxena said in a telephone interview.
Sun Microsystems has been leading the Unix server market across the region since the first quarter of 2000, Saxena said, declining however to reveal specifics.
He also declined to reveal how Big Blue's other competitors fared in the first quarter, except to say that "Sun, HP and Compaq followed behind IBM in revenues".
IBM's unseating of Sun was mainly due to "aggressive marketing coupled with improving price and performances", Saxena noted.
In a statement, IBM claimed that its Japan and Greater China business contributed a bulk of revenues to the first quarter, or up 54.5 percent and 154 percent respectively year-on-year.
When asked if he expects IBM to maintain pole position, Saxena said: "IBM is focused in the Unix server market and IDC sees bright prospects for IBM in this space and there could be more good news to follow for IBM." He did not elaborate.
However, he cautioned that the global economic downturn will affect the growth of revenues for IBM and its competitors in the remaining quarters.
Last week, the research firm said IBM came out tops in total server revenues in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) with about US$440 million for the first quarter of this year compared with about US$344 million for the same period last year.
Second was HP with US$256.3 million, followed by Compaq with US$237.7 million in revenues. Sun Microsystems came in fourth with zero year-on-year revenue growth at US$196.71 million, IDC said.
IBM's revenues for Unix servers in the region, including Japan, for the first quarter this year was US$294 million compared with US$187 million in the same period last year.