Overall revenues scored by Taiwan's server sector including segments of motherboards, terminal systems, storage devices and related network equipment, are expected to surge 24.6% on year to NT$870 billion (US$28.2 billion) in 2018, according to Digitimes Research.
Compared with revenue growth, Taiwan server shipments for 2018 are estimated to see a lower annual increase of 11.5%, with Wiwynn posting the highest shipment expansion, figures from Digitimes Research's latest server report showed.
Global server shipments have been estimated to keep growing in 2018 and 2019. But affected by the US-China trade war and poor transition to Intel's new-generation Purley server processor at some clients, the 2018 shipment growth rate has been lower than expected. And the growth rate for 2019 is also expected to be thwarted amid the lingering trade tensions between the world's two largest economies and some clients already taking high shipments in 2018.
In terms of demand by clients, large-size data centers in the US have registered the most remarkable growth, and China customers have also shown robust demand. As the shipment ratio for Taiwan-sourced white-box server models has kept rising, the aggregate global server market share held by Taiwan manufacturers has hit a high level of 91% in 2018.
Bolstered by sharp shipment growth of its subsidiary Wiwynn, Wistron Group has kept narrowing its shipment gap with the largest server maker Inventec. Meanwhile, Quanta Computer, Foxconn and Wiwynn have all seen increased reliance on large-size data centers for contract production orders in 2018.