IDC Q2 2020 Data Center Hardware Market Report: Server, Storage, and Network Trends

According to IDC, the global server market revenue grew 19.8% year‑over‑year in Q2 2020, reaching $24 billion, while shipments rose 18.4% to roughly 3.2 million units. Batch servers led the growth (+22.1% to $18.7 billion), mid‑range servers fell 0.4%, and high‑end systems rose 44.1%.

Top vendors by revenue share were HPE/New H3C (14.9%) and Dell Technologies (13.9%); Inspur ranked third with 10.5% share and a 77% YoY increase. ODM Direct providers contributed 28.8% of total server revenue ($6.9 billion) and 34.4% of shipments.

In the storage segment, external OEM storage system revenue declined 5.0% YoY to just under $6.3 billion, while total capacity grew 5.1% to 17.1 EB. ODM Direct revenue surged 64.1% to $7 billion, with capacity up 122.1%.

Leading storage vendors were Dell (27% share), followed by HPE/New H3C and NetApp (10.5% and 9.8%), with IBM and Huawei each holding about 8%.

For networking, the Ethernet switch market fell 6.3% YoY to $6.6 billion, whereas the enterprise/router market edged up 0.1% to $4 billion. Regional analysis shows China’s switch market grew 25.4% and router market 18.1%, while most other regions declined.

Vendor highlights include Cisco (47.2% switch market share, revenue down 13.4%), Huawei (15.7% switch revenue growth), Arista (6.4% market share, 100 Gb switch revenue 72.4% of its total), HPE (switch revenue down 17.3%), and Juniper (switch revenue down 8.2%).

Analysts note that server demand remained robust despite COVID‑19, while storage and switch markets experienced modest declines; China’s strong pandemic control contributed to double‑digit growth across all three components.