Worldwide server shipments for the third quarter of 2007 increased 8.7% over the same quarter last year, while worldwide server revenue for the same period climbed 2.6% according to Gartner. Worldwide server revenue totaled $13.4 billion for the quarter, as worldwide servers shipments reached just over 2.2 million units.

"This quarter the server market grew both in units and revenue, driven by x86 market volumes in the quarter, while RISC-Itanium UNIX servers revenue grew at 8%,” said Errol Rasit, senior analyst at Gartner. “Underlying market dynamics such as growth from emerging markets, coupled with an ongoing demand for increased capacity, are stronger than any inhibitors such as server virtualisation. Any implications from financial market instability were not visible in the server market in the third quarter.”

IBM continued to lead the worldwide server market based on revenue. In server shipments, Hewlett-Packard grew 20.2% compared to the third quarter of 2006, and retained its worldwide server shipment lead.

The blade server segment continued to drive growth in the third quarter. Worldwide blade server shipments grew 13.8%, accounting for 10% of server shipment share.