China's computer-server market continues growth

China's computer-server market, especially the high-end market segment, continues to grow despite the pandemic, as governments and companies are increasing investments in digital transformation.

In 2020, China's server-market sales grew 9.8 percent year on year. The fastest-growing sectors – the Internet, finance and service industries – saw double-digit growth, according to International Data Corp (IDC).

The Chinese market still has huge potential for high-end servers in sectors like tax collection, securities, banking, insurance and medical, according to Inspur Power Commercial Systems (IPS), a joint venture between Inspur and IBM.

Inspur (including IPS), Huawei and H3C are the top three server vendors in China, according to IDC.

"In the waves of digital transformation and e-commerce, customers require features with high levels of reliability, availability, security and consistency. Those high-end products like Inspur's K1 Power systems have strong market demand," said John Hu, IPS' general manager.

In strategic industries like finance, transportation and medical, IPS server sales have continued growing more than 30 percent year on year in recent quarters. Its clients include Hua Hong Electronics, Luoyang Bank and Southeast University.

Independent software vendors can develop customized applications and enrich the entire server community, analysts said.

Server clients care more about infrastructure reliability and security to support digital transformation and upgrades for their core businesses, said Thomas Zhou, an analyst for IDC.