According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Client Device Tracker, worldwide thin client and terminal client device shipments totalled 1,28-million units in the first quarter of 2014 (1Q14). This is an increase of 7,1% from the same quarter a year ago and 2% lower than IDC’s forecast for the quarter.
IDC expects the market to continue growing over the remainder of the year with 5,7-million units forecast to be shipped in 2014, representing 5% year-over-year growth. By 2018, these devices are expected to reach 7,8-million units shipped worldwide.
“After posting 14,5% year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2013, the worldwide Enterprise client market continued to show good momentum in the first quarter. The positive growth in the worldwide shipments was helped by strong performances in five out of the eight regional markets, bringing worldwide shipments in the quarter to nearly 1,3-million units,” says Rajani Singh, research analyst: Personal Computing at IDC.
Thin Clients continue to make up the vast majority (97,5%) of enterprise client devices and saw an increase of 8,9% from the previous year. Terminal clients also saw an increase from the previous year with 25,540 units shipped.
The standalone form factor constitutes the largest segment of the overall market at 88,9% share. For the mobile form factor, 67,7% of the worldwide share is concentrated in Japan. Thin clients with LCD are dominant in Asia/Pacific, excluding Japan (APeJ) with 40% of the worldwide share.
Thin Clients without Operating Systems (zero clients) now hold 24,6% share among the thin client segment, which is an increase of 13,6% from the previous year. Windows Embedded OS thin clients are the largest at 44,5% share.
HP continued to rank number 1 in 1Q14 with 30,6% worldwide market share. This quarter, they ranked first in five out of eight regions.
While Dell held the number 2 position with 27% worldwide market share in 1Q14, it remains the number one vendor in the Americas with 40,2% share, where it holds top rank in the United States with 43,1% share.
NComputing ranks third in worldwide market share at 8,3% share in 1Q14. Despite having no shipments in China, NComputing ranked number two in APeJ. Terminal clients represent 93,1% of its total terminal unit volume, which helped it to achieve this top position.
Igel continued its strong performance from the previous quarter with 51,7% year-over-year growth at the worldwide level. It made notable gains in Western Europe with 90,9% of its shipments concentrated there.
Within the thin client category, Centerm held the number one position in the APeJ market for 1Q14, with 22,9% regional share due to being the leading vendor in China with 41,3% local share.