NEEDHAM, Mass. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — June 10, 2021 — According to the International Data Corporation ( IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, the worldwide server market grew 12.0% year over year to $20.9 billion during the first quarter of 2021 (1Q21). Worldwide server shipments grew 8.3% year over year to nearly 2.8 million units in 1Q21.

Sales of volume servers were up 15.4% to $17.3 billion during the quarter, while midrange server sales declined 2.7% to $2.4 billion. High-end server sales grew 0.1% to $1.2 billion.

"The first quarter 2021 server market performance benefited from a comparison against the most difficult quarter of last year's pandemic stricken year, but this fact doesn't tell a complete story," said Paul Maguranis, senior research analyst, Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies at IDC. "The considerable increase of server investments during the quarter were also buoyed by global economic tailwinds along with increased investments targeting the modernization of business applications, datacenter infrastructure, and IT operations."

Overall Server Market Standings, by Company

Dell Technologies held the top worldwide server market ranking in 1Q21, accounting for 17.0% of total revenue. HPE/H3C(a) was the second largest company, accounting for 15.9% of total revenue. Inspur/Inspur Power Systems(b) and Lenovo were tied for third with 7.2% and 6.9% respective share of total revenue. The ODM Direct group of vendors accounted for 26.3% of total server revenue during the quarter. The top suppliers of 1Q21 server unit shipments were Dell Technologies (17.5%), HPE/H3C(a) (14.5%), Inspur/Inspur Power Systems(b) (8.0%), and Lenovo (6.1%).