7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013 (4Q13), a decrease of 5.2% when compared with the same quarter of 2012. Shipments reached 606,548 units, representing a minimal 0.3% annual decline. The quarter-on-quarter performance displayed a more positive picture with moderate double-digit growth in volumes, which were up 13.2% and revenue showing strong growth of 28.5%. The strong performance compared with the previous quarter is mainly down to seasonality, while the more significant decline in revenues than units compared with the same quarter last year is a sign of continuing price sensitivity at times of economic uncertainty and ongoing price competition, particularly at the lower end of the market.

EMEA server revenues reached $12.4 billion for the full calendar year 2013, which shows a moderate annual decline of 5.3%. The decline in unit terms was less significant at 2.7%, with over 2.2 million server units shipped in 2013. Despite the negative growth the market has improved compared with the stronger annual declines of 9.6% in revenues and 5.0% in units in 2012.

x86 servers totaled revenues of $2.8 billion, equivalent to 75.8% of the total value market (a decline of 5.7 percentage points quarterly and an increase of 6.6 percentage points annually). x86 industry standard servers achieved year-on-year revenue growth of 3.7% despite a slight decline in unit terms by 0.3%. "These figures underline the ongoing shift toward higher-end servers with upgrades to models that feature the latest-generation x86 processors," said Giorgio Nebuloni, research manager, Enterprise Server Group, IDC EMEA. "Capacity increases are also achieved through advances on the virtualization and management software side, making scale out less viable for on-premises datacenters in view of the high costs for energy, maintenance, and floor space rental. The trend is of course reversed in large B2C and B2B cloud facilities, which keep pushing the envelope on scale-out, commodity architectures."