The worldwide spend on data center hardware and software increased by 7% from the second quarter of 2019, due to new Q2 data from Synergy Research Group. The main reason for this increase is a 25% jump in spending on public cloud infrastructure, which pushed it to an all-time high.
Public cloud infrastructure revenue has a pick
In terms of market share, ODMs in aggregate account for the largest portion of the public cloud market, with Inspur now the leading individual vendor, followed by Dell, Microsoft and Huawei. Microsoft, followed by Dell, HPE, Cisco and VMware were the Q2 market leader in enterprise infrastructure. Due to the research, total data center infrastructure equipment revenues, including both cloud and non-cloud, hardware and software, were $41.4 billion in Q2, with public cloud infrastructure accounting for 41% of the total.
Dell is the leader in server and storage revenues, while Cisco is dominant in the networking segment. Microsoft features heavily in the rankings with its position in server OS and virtualization applications. HPE, Inspur, Huawei, VMware, Lenovo and IBM are the other leading vendors in the market.

John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group, said,
“In the middle of a global pandemic, spending on data center infrastructure was almost at an all-time high – second only to the fourth quarter of 2019. That speaks volumes about the continued robust growth in both enterprise and consumer cloud services. There was also a geographic story behind the growth. The US market grew at a good pace in the quarter, but among the larger markets it was China that was the standout performer, jumping almost 35% from the second quarter of last year.”