Quarterly server sales in EMEA rose 8.7 per cent year over year, according to figures from analyst house Gartner.

Blade systems showed the strongest growth at over 13 per cent for the third quarter of 2007, and x86 sales growth was also strong.

IBM still leads the market in server revenue, but lost share rapidly to the number two player HP.

"The third quarter of 2007 was again strong for the server market in EMEA, with shipments returning to double digit growth," said Samina Malik, principal analyst at Gartner.

"Overall demand for servers remained healthy with no visible impact from financial market instability during the quarter."

Malik added that x86-based servers continued to perform strongly, and that Risc/Itanium Unix servers also saw good revenue growth.

Sun Microsystems server sales fell slightly, but its revenues were up showing the benefit of the company's premium server service.

"This quarter the server market grew in units and revenue, driven by x86 market volumes in the quarter, while Risc-Itanium Unix servers revenue grew at eight per cent," said Errol Rasit, senior analyst at Gartner.

"Underlying market dynamics, such as growth from emerging markets and ongoing demand for increased capacity, are stronger than any inhibitors such as server virtualisation."

Gartner said that 2.2 million servers were shipped during the quarter, 645,000 of which were in Europe.

Global server revenues reached $13bn, about a third of which was generated within the EU.