eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
The worldwide disk storage systems market posted strong growth in the first quarter of 2012, according to IDC’s “Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker” study. The report found factory revenues jumped 7.1 percent year-over-year growth, totaling just under $6 billion, while the total disk storage systems market was up 6.8 percent from the same quarter last year, totaling $8 billion.
EMC led the market with 29 percent revenue share in the first quarter, followed by NetApp with a 14.1 percent market share. IBM landed in third place with 11.4 percent, and in a statistical tie (when there is less than 1 percent difference in the factory revenues of two or more vendors), Hewlett-Packard and Hitachi landed in fourth, with 10.2 percent and 9.4 percent market shares, respectively.
“Despite concerns surrounding the hard-disk-drive shortage, the external disk storage systems market posted a strong first quarter, with revenues up a solid 7.1 percent year-over-year,” Liz Conner, senior research analyst for IDCs storage systems department, said in prepared remarks. “Entry-level systems (ASV of less than $25,000) were hit hardest owing to their reliance on SATA and near-line SAS drives, which experienced price increases due to the Thailand floods. However, strong overall growth in emerging regions and the slowdown in price per gigabyte ($/GB) erosion helped the market post year-over-year growth.”
EMC led the network-attached storage (NAS) market with a 42.6 percent revenue share, although the overall market declined modestly by 1.9 percent year-over-year. The company placed second in the fast-growing iSCSI storage area network (SAN) market, with 18.9 percent revenue share, sandwiched in between market leader Dell (33 percent) and third-place finisher NetApp (13.7 percent). In the total open networked disk storage market, which IDC quantifies as the NAS combined with open and iSCSI SAN systems, revenues were up 8.5 percent year-over-year in the first quarter to $5.1 billion.
“The high-end storage segment (average selling price of $250,000+) remained flat year-over-year and declined 13 percent sequentially in the first quarter of 2012,” Amita Potnis, senior research analyst for storage systems at IDC said in a press statement. “The high-end segment grew significantly in 2010 and 2011 owing to the loosened storage budgets after the economic crisis of 2009. IDC believes that the softened growth in the high-end segment this quarter is reflective of what will be a long-term trend.”