Gartner Japan Ltd. said Friday that domestic demand for servers during the first half of this year remained steady despite a slump in the global information technology market.

In terms of volume, shipments increased 30.3 percent from a year earlier to 231,065 units, according to the Japanese unit of U.S. consulting firm Gartner Inc.

In value terms, server shipments for the six-month period rose 5.5 percent to 476.8 billion yen, it said.

The data indicate that a slowdown in the U.S. economy has not affected the Japanese server market too severely, as it has been supported by growing IT capital investments by public organizations and educational institutions, it said.

As for the April-June quarter, server shipments grew 25.7 percent from the corresponding period last year to 101,238 units.

In terms of value, they increased 9.2 percent to 208.9 billion yen, it said.

NEC Corp. registered the largest volume of shipments during the January-June period at 38,931 units, followed by IBM Japan Ltd. at 33,784 units and Fujitsu Ltd. at 31,728, it said.

Looking ahead, Gartner Japan said it expects growth in the domestic server market to slow in the latter half of this year, with share-price falls and poor earnings among IT-related firms likely to discourage IT investments.

The firm added, however, that mid- and long-term demand for servers will expand and will be one of the key IT infrastructure components supporting corporate activities.