IDC: 'Significant Rebound' for Data Center Gear

The global market for data center equipment, such as power distribution units (PDUs), uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), cooling and racks, made a significant rebound in the second quarter of 2010, with revenues and shipments expanding 6.9% and 3.6%, respectively, compared to the first quarter of the year, according to the latest Worldwide Quarterly Datacenter Infrastructure QView from research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).

IDC also reported that data center infrastructure revenues were down just 1.8%, while shipments were up 2.6% year over year.

"The rebound of the data center infrastructure market in the second quarter reflects the overall IT recovery from the 'Great Recession,'" said Katherine Broderick, senior research analyst, IDC's Enterprise Servers and Data Center Trends. "More new data centers are being built, while old data centers are being retrofitted with new, more efficient data center infrastructure. IDC attributes much of this data center growth to wholesale data center providers and hosters."

From the vendor perspective, Emerson Network Power and its Liebert brand led the data center cooling market, combining for 47.9% of revenues in Q2. Despite losing 3.3% of its revenue share quarter over quarter, APC by Schneider Electric remained the leader in the data center power distribution unit (PDU) market, with 29.1% of the market, IDC reported.

In the data center rack market, HP outpaced its nearest competitor, Emerson, with 22.5% of revenues. In the data center uninterruptible power supply (UPS) market, Eaton's share was up 0.8% quarter over quarter, and the company led the market with 30.2% of revenue.