Global server shipments grew only 9.2% sequentially in the second quarter of 2021, weaker than Digitimes Research's estimation of 14% growth made in April, due to shortages of components and ICs.

The volumes will grow another 13% in the third quarter as orders from US- and China-based first-tier datacenter operators and server brands will pick up, due to growing demand for cloud computing services, enterprise AI solutions and high-performance computing (HPC) applications, according to Digitimes Research's latest figures in its Server Tracker.

Orders for server models equipped with Intel's latest platform also will increase in the third quarter, while order pull-ins from the top-4 datacenter operators in North America - Facebook, Amazon, Google and Microsoft - are particularly strong, despite IC shortages.

With first-tier datacenter operators and server brands having depleted a major portion of their server inventory during the second quarter, they have resumed order pull-ins in the third quarter, with the top-4 datacenter operators in North America being the keenest.

Their combined order pull-ins will increase 16% sequentially in the third quarter, boosting shipments of their ODMs including Quanta Computer, Wiwynn and Foxconn, by a double-digit percentage on quarter, with Wiwynn enjoying the highest growth.

With hybrid working schedules becoming a trend among enterprises in the third quarter amid the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, demand for online meeting, multimedia streaming and e-commerce services will continue rising, prompting cloud computing service providers to procure more servers.

Global server shipments are expected to reach the peak of 2021 in the third quarter with Microsoft to have the highest sequential shipment growth in the quarter.

Cloud datacenter operators and server brands' demand for servers in the fourth quarter will decelerate, but global shipments will only have a single-digit sequential decline in the quarter, as datacenter operators and server brands' orders deferred from the third quarter will be fulfilled and component shortages will also improve.

The global server shipment ratio for the first and second halves of 2021 is expected to reach 45:55 with annual volumes having a chance to break 17 million units, up 5.1% on year.

By DIGITIMES