Sales of x86 servers in China will increase substantially this year after a
slowdown in 2007, local analysts report.
The market value will rise 11.8 per cent to $1.68bn, while unit sales will
increase 16.1 per cent to 690,000, according to forecasts from Beijing-based
CCID
Consulting.
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"The driving forces for market growth came from the fast-growing telecom and
value-added telecom services, accelerating IT applications in the transportation
sector [and] the warm-up of the SMB market," said CCID analysts.
A number of new markets for servers opened up and began to account for
significant sales in China last year.
These included online banking and securities trading, new "socialist
countryside building" and city emergency system building, according to CCID.
China's market for x86 servers was worth $1.5bn in 2007, with 595,000 servers
sold, according to estimates based on initial sales data.
These figures indicate that the market suffered a significant slowdown in the
rate of increase in sales revenue to below 13 per cent last year, after growing
almost 20 per cent in 2006.
The shape of the market is also changing as major local vendors such as
Huawei and
ZTE begin to
use existing sales channels to sell servers.
Huawei and ZTE, China's largest telecoms equipment makers, began selling
servers in significant numbers during 2007, challenging market leaders
Dell,
HP,
Sun
Microsystems and
IBM in the
telecoms sector.
"If ZTE and Huawei enter the enterprise-level market, competition in the
server market will intensify. The whole market pattern will change and a new
round of reshuffling will be imminent," said CCID analysts.
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