"Since international ISPs such as Microsoft and Google aim to gain more traction in the enterprise datacenter market with plans to set up global datacenters over the period 2017-2018, Taiwanese manufacturers will still have some room for expansion with white-box servers," says Pei-fen Hsieh, senior analyst with MIC.

"Taking the advantage of their close connections with these US brands that will only get bigger with time, Taiwan manufacturers are able to grow accordingly in the years ahead. Nevertheless, the deferred demand in anticipation of new chip rollouts is expected to drag server shipments on the full-system and barebones levels and on board level."

Figure 1: Taiwan Full System and Barebones Server Shipment Volume, 4Q 2014 - 2Q 2017 (Source: MIC, February 2017)