Traditional Desktop Workstations Continue to Drive Worldwide Certified Workstations Growth in 2014(r

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., February 11, 2015 – According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Workstation Tracker, the overall certified workstation market maintained its growth momentum in the fourth quarter of 2014 (4Q14). Worldwide shipments were up 8.8% year over year in 4Q14 to 946,089 units making this the seventh consecutive quarter of positive growth in a competitive market driven by traditional desktop workstations. For the full year 2014, total worldwide shipments improved significantly to 3.7 million units and 8.9% year-over-year growth compared to annual growth of 2.9% in 2013.

Regional Highlights

Emerging markets continued to grow faster than developed markets in 2014. Latin America, with 2.7% global market share, had double-digit growth for the fourth consecutive quarter and gained 0.5 points of share from a year ago. Overall the region ended 4Q14 with 33.3% year-over-year growth with Mexico and Brazil growing at 76.2% and 8.5% respectively.

Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) accounted for 19.1% of global shipments and ended the quarter with year-over-year growth of 19.5%, its fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. India and China continued to drive the regional growth, assisted by stronger adoption rates in Malaysia and Vietnam.

The U.S. and Western Europe accounted for 63.6% of worldwide shipments with year-over-year growth of 16.1% and 8.2% respectively.

"Customers continue to demand alternative solutions that deliver high performance, quality, and value that will help increase productivity in engineering, architecture, finance, and graphic design," said Ebenezer Obeng-Nyarkoh, Senior Research Analyst, Worldwide Trackers Group. "Engineering continues to be the driving force for workstation workloads and accounts for more than 57% of the total market."

Vendor Highlights – Desktop Workstations

The overall desktop workstation market, including all-in-ones, blade, rack, and traditional desktops, experienced a year-over-year decline of -0.8%.

HP remained the leading vendor in the desktop workstation market with 44.6% share despite a year-over-year decline of 2.7% in shipments, which caused it to lose 1.2 points of market share sequentially and 0.9 points from a year ago.

Dell remained the number 2 desktop workstation vendor despite a year-over-year decline that exceeded the overall market. With modest contractions of -1.8% year-over-year and -3.3% sequentially, Dell maintained 35.8% of market share, losing 0.4 points compared to a year ago and 0.8 sequentially.

The number 3 desktop vendor Lenovo continued to beat market expectations with remarkable growth and share gain from the leading vendors. Lenovo ended the quarter with 33.1% year-over-year growth, its 21st consecutive quarter of growth, and gained 3.4 points of share compared to 4Q13.

Fujitsu and NEC finished in the number 4 and 5 positions respectively, with single-digit market share and year-over-year growth that declined more rapidly than the overall market.