The Supercomputers segment, for HPC systems that sell for $500,000 and up, declined -29.4% year over year to $4.0 billion, accounting for 38.8% of total HPC server revenue in 2013. A major component of the 2013 revenue came from very large systems sold by IBM, HP, and Cray. IDC expects this segment to resume growth in future years.
The sub-$500,000 segments experienced a second successive year of robust growth, continuing their rebound from the global economic recession.
- The Divisional segment ($250,000-$499,000 price band) grew 11.4% year over year to reach $1.4 billion, or 13.2% of the total HPC server revenue for 2013.
- The Departmental segment ($100,000-$250,000 price band) expanded by 12.9% to $3.4 billion, or 32.7% of total 2013 HPC server revenue.
- The Workgroup segment, for HPC systems sold for less than $100,000, showed the strongest growth expanding 23.9% over 2012 to $1.6 billion, and representing 15.4% of all 2013 HPC server revenue.
Unit shipments in 2013 increased by 19% year over year, due to the continued rebound in the sub-$500,000 segments where the majority of all HPC server units are sold.
Vendor Highlights
- HP led the market in 2013 with a 32.3% share of overall HPC server revenue, followed by IBM with 27.7%.
- Cray had an exceptionally strong 2013, boosting revenue 23.4% over 2012.
- Dawning's strong second-half performance led to 73.8% revenue growth over 2012.
- The combined "Other" category exceeded $1 billion for the first time and was heavily driven by the acceptance of the Tianhe-2 system built by China's National University of Defense Technology (NUDT).
For more information about the IDC Worldwide High Performance Technical Server QView, please contact Chirag Dekate at cdekate@idc.com.