The EMEA server market enjoyed a strong pickup in the first quarter of 2010, with revenue up 7.4% annually to $3.2 billion ÔÇô though good news on growth should be tempered when compared with Q408 numbers which show $4.4 bn in revenues and even that was below revenues of $5.4bn reached in Q407.

So a long way to go to pre-recession shipments and revenues in the X86 and RISC markets.

For Q110 unit shipments returned to double-digit growth, up 16.4% year on year, with around 560,000 systems shipped. The figures indicate a welcome upsurge in the market after double-digit annual revenue declines in every quarter of 2009 ÔÇô said market watcher IDC which produced the figures.

Quarter-on-quarter performance took a dive in the value area, with revenue down 19.9%, indicating the market is still fluctuating. Blade server shipment growth lagged behind the market average up 12% in unit terms but in revenue terms it surged 32% against a 7% market average ÔÇô reflecting strong enterprise sales.

The geographic split saw the economies of the Central and Eastern European [CEE] subregion, which lost market share against the Middle East and Africa during 2009, enjoyed the fastest growth rates, with sales growing 14.1% in 1Q10 on 1Q09, on the back of strong growth in Russia, whose revenue was up 58% year on year, with most of this growth in the x86 segment. In the Middle East and Africa [MEA], server revenue was up 9.4% annually.

Revenue from the CEE and MEA subregions was 9.4% and 11.2% of the total EMEA revenue respectively in the first quarter of 2010.

Top 5 Corporate Vendor Family, EMEA Server Factory Revenue, 1Q 10 (Millions)

Source: IDC's EMEA Quarterly Server Tracker, May 2010