Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and Dell Technologies Inc. subsidiary Dell EMC remain at the front of the computer server market in terms of revenue and units shipped, but their lead is being threatened by rapid growth from Chinese rivals.

That’s according to the latest data from the research firm Gartner Inc., which said today in its latest worldwide server revenue tracker that the market as a whole showed encouraging growth, with revenues growing 16 percent to $14.7 billion in the third quarter. Some 2.8 million units were shipped in total, up 5.1 percent from the same period a year ago.

Gartner research vice president Jeffrey Hewitt said this growth could be pinned on a build-out of infrastructure to support cloud and hybrid-cloud implementations.

HPE is still the biggest earner, pulling in $3.14 billion for the quarter even as it saw its growth dip by a little over 3 percent. Second-placed Dell grew by 38 percent as its numbers benefited from its acquisition of EMC Corp., grossing $3.07 billion in server revenue.

Despite the positive quarter, both companies will likely be glancing nervously over their shoulders at the meteoric rise of Chinese outfit Inspur Electronics Co. Ltd., which earned $1.08 billion in revenue on the back of 117 percent growth. That puts Inspur up into fourth place overall, trailing a somewhat reinvigorated IBM Corp., which pulled in $1.13 billion in revenue as it also grew, by 27 percent.

Dell EMC remains the top dog in terms of units shipped. The company sold 503,000 server units in the quarter, representing growth of 11.2 percent. HPE came in second here, with 463,000 units shipped.

Perhaps the bigger story is the continued rise of companies in Gartner’s “others” category. Made up of mostly Chinese white-box manufacturers, the others saw their accumulated revenue rise to $5.3 billion on the back of 1.3 million units shipped, underscoring their popularity with “hyperscale” data center owners such as Google LLC and Facebook Inc.

Image: Kin Lane/Flickr