Economic problems led Latin American IT buyers to refrain from buying as many servers as in the past during the first quarter, according to a study released Thursday.
Server shipments and revenue fell 10.4 percent and 16.1 percent, respectively, compared with last year's first quarter, Gartner Inc.'s Dataquest Inc. said in a statement.
Argentina, which is going through a devastating economic crisis, got hit the hardest. Its shipments fell 85 percent. Shipments remained flat in Brazil, Mexico and Chile compared with last year's first quarter. Colombia was the only one among the region's major markets whose shipments grew, posting an increase of 19 percent, according to Dataquest.
Compaq Computer shipped the most servers -- 8,604 -- down 11.2 percent from last year's first quarter. IBM, which came in second, saw its shipments drop less than one percent to 6,018. Dell Computer, which followed IBM, grew its shipments 49 percent. Hewlett-Packard, which finalized its acquisition of Compaq this month, came in fourth; its shipments dropped 33.5 percent. Mexican vendor Alaska, which is owned by Mexican distributor Mexmal Mayorista SA de CV, nabbed the fifth spot and attained a 72 percent increase in shipments.
In terms of revenue, IBM topped the list with US$107.7 million, down 15.4 percent from last year's first quarter. Compaq came in second and saw its revenue grow 14.2 percent to $54 million. Its new parent, HP, arrived third and experienced a revenue drop of 3.8 percent. Fourth-place finisher Sun Microsystems took a hard hit with a 52.8 percent revenue decrease. Brazilian vendor Itautec Philco SA finished in fifth place and saw its revenue climb 48 percent.
An estimated 38,492 servers were shipped, good for total revenue of $311.1 million, according to San Jose, California, Dataquest.