The world’s biggest computer server makers were basking in the sunshine during the third quarter, making the most of a nearly 38 percent jump in market revenue that topped $23.36 billion.

According to International Data Corp.’s latest quarterly market tracker, server shipments also grew nicely, by 18 percent, to 3.161 million units.

Dell Technologies Inc., which is all set to become a publicly traded company again after getting the go-ahead this week by shareholders to buy up their stock, led the server market for the third straight quarter. The company saw its revenue grow by 33 percent, to $4.09 billion, with shipments growing 10.5 percent, to 556,000 units.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., which previously led the market, saw its own revenue grow by 14.8 percent, to $3.8 billion. However, its total shipments felly by 9 percent, to 456,200 units, in part because it has moved away from selling low-cost server hardware.

Inspur Group, a Chinese original design manufacturer, came in third overall, leaping above Lenovo Group Holding Ltd. Inspur pulled in $1.71 billion in revenue on the back of 283,600 units shipped. That represents growth of 156.5 percent and 90.2 percent, respectively. Lenovo saw revenue growth of 67 percent, to $1.437 billion, with 193,500 servers sold.

IBM Corp. is no longer the player it once was since selling its x86 server division to Lenovo, but it still ranks in the top five in terms of revenue. It sold $1.196 billion worth of server gear in the quarter, putting it just ahead of China’s Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and U.S. firm Cisco Systems Inc., which saw revenue of $1.05 billion and $1.04 billion, respectively.

ODM Direct, which refers to several low-cost Chinese contract manufacturers that build servers to order for hyperscale data center operators such as Facebook Inc., also saw solid growth. Revenue jumped by 30.5 percent, to $6.25 billion, with 871,500 shipments.

“The worldwide server market once again generated strong revenue and unit shipment growth due to an ongoing enterprise refresh cycle and continued demand from cloud service providers,” said Sebastian Lagana, research manager, Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies at IDC. “Enterprise infrastructure requirements from resource-intensive next-generation applications support increasingly rich configurations, ensuring average selling prices remain elevated against the year-ago quarter. At the same time, hyperscalers continue to upgrade and expand their datacenter capabilities.”

IDC also provided a regional breakdown of the market revenues, saying that Asia Pacific led the way with 46.5 percent growth. The U.S. market grew by 43.7 percent, while Europe, the Middle East and Africa saw 24.5 percent growth.

Images: IDC