Server shipments to Facebook are forecast to register a 15% sequential increase in the third quarter of 2020, when the social network giant is expected to absorb over 15% of total global server sales, according to Digitimes Research.
But shipments to Amazon, Microsoft and Google are likely to decline on quarter, with those to Microsoft to see the largest sequential fall of over 20%.
The decline in shipments to the three cloud services providers will result from a slowdown in demand from their enterprise users, as many businesses engaged in aviation, travel, retail and catering services as well as smaller enterprises or startups have deferred uploading their data to public clouds to cut IT expenses amid the coronavirus pandemic.
But Facebook has benefited significantly from pandemic-induced demand for remote social activities, with its monthly active users picking up steadily. This has enabled Facebook to maintain strong server shipment pull-in momentum, Digitimes Research notes.
Facebook mainly demands high-density 4U16N multi-node computing servers enabling massive data computing and storage to support the operation of its huge video data platform, adding momentum to its server shipments.
Additionally, Facebook initiated the formation of the Open Compute Project (OCP) in 2011, providing the most influential reference architecture design standards for datacenter servers needed by the four major datacenter operators in the US.
Taiwan's Inventec, Quanta Computer, Foxconn Technology, Wiwynn and MiTac Computing Technology are major contract server producers for the US web giants. Among them, Wiwynn, Quanta, and Inventec are expected to gain increases in shipments to Facebook in the third quarter.