Server revenue increased from a year earlier in all areas of the world except Japan, which saw a 4.4 percent drop in the quarter. North America led the gains, with a 24.5 percent increase from a year earlier, followed by Asia-Pacific with 22.4 percent and Latin America with 12.3 percent. Europe, Middle East and Africa registered a 10.4 percent gain in server revenue.

Servers built around x86 processors dominated the market, representing about 97 percent of all shipments in the quarter, and grew by 7.1 percent in shipments and 20.0 percent in revenue, according to Gartner.

Blade servers shot up 29.5 percent in revenue and 12.6 percent in shipments in 2010. By the fourth quarter, they made up about 14 percent of the total server market, said Gartner analyst Jeffrey Hewitt.

For the full year, revenue grew 13.2 percent and shipments increased 16.8 percent. HP led the market by a hair with $15.3 billion in revenue, up almost 19 percent from 2009. IBM followed with just over $15 billion in revenue, up 9.2 percent. Both had about 31 percent of the market in 2010.

The IDG News Service