HP, IBM and Dell are leading the high performance computing (HPC) technical server market in the third quarter of 2013, said IDC.
The market share of HP in the HPC technical server market in third quarter was 32.7 percent.
On the other hand, IBM has a market share of 29.5 percent in the HPC technical server market in third quarter.
IT market research agency IDC said Dell maintained its third-place position with 15.2 percent of global revenue.
IDC says worldwide factory revenue for the high performance computing (HPC) technical server market declined to $2.5 billion in the third quarter of 2013 from $3.4 billion in the same period of 2012.
Trends
The third quarter results continued the trend IDC reported three months ago, when we noted that the top half of the HPC market, especially supercomputer systems sold for $500,000 and up, expanded rapidly right through the global economic recession and experienced record-setting growth in 2012.
In 2012, several very large, one-time-only supercomputer sales drove that segment up by close to $1 billion. IDC did not expect the supercomputers segment to repeat that performance in 2013, although there will be other growth periods in the future.
In the first three quarters of 2013, revenue growth has shifted toward sub-$250,000 systems as the lower half of the market continues to rebound strongly from the global economic recession.
The brightest spot in 3Q13 was the Departmental segment for systems priced from $100,000 to $249,000. Revenue in this segment jumped 41.5 percent to $966.3 million. The Workstation segment — for HPC systems selling below $100,000 — expanded by 37.2 percent in the third quarter to $421 million.
Together, the Workgroup and Departmental segments made up 53.8 percent of all HPC server systems revenue in the third quarter. IDC has corroborated the recovery trend in the lower half of the market by conducting several thousand survey calls with HPC buyers and end users.
The high-end supercomputers segment ($500,000 and up) accounted for 33.2 percent of the overall market in 3Q13, or $854.6 million, a sharp drop of 59.7 percent from the exceptionally strong figure of $2.1 billion in the third quarter of 2012. The Divisional segment ($250,000 to $499,000 price band) represented 13.0 percent of total HPC systems revenue, or $335.1 million, a 5.4 percent increase over the third quarter of 2012.
Unit shipments of 31,792 increased 29.8 percent year over year and increased by 1.1 percent over the first quarter of 2013. The increases reflected the resurgence of the lower half of the market, where most HPC server shipments happen.
During the first three quarters of 2013, HPC technical server market revenues declined 6.7 percent, with an increase of 26.3 percent in unit shipments, compared to the same period in 2012.
The high-end Supercomputers segment experienced a significant decline of -38.9 percent in the first three quarters of 2013 compared to the same period in 2012. Revenue for Workgroup HPC systems grew 35.8 percent compared to the first three quarters of 2012.
