IDC: Storage Sales Defy Recession Fears

Despite the global credit crisis that has slowed down consumerism around the world, sales in external disk storage systems grew by nine percent in the last quarter, says research firm IDC.

 

"While the economic turmoil has already started impacting spending in various IT segments, including PCs and server systems, the market for external disk storage systems remained in stable condition with solid year-over-year growth," Natalya Yezhkova, IDC's (News - Alert) storage systems research manager.

 

Interestingly, according to IDC, storage is one of a few hardware categories where buyers are reluctant to cut spending despite mounting economic pressure.

 

Analysts are, however, waiting for the fourth quarter results to talk decisively on the fate of storage systems. As of now, tightening budgets are leading to longer purchasing cycles for storage systems and to the adoption of technologies designed to optimize storage utilization. Whether the trend will continue even into the fourth quarter is eagerly awaited.

 

IDC said worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenue grew 8.8 percent from the third quarter of 2007 to $4.9 billion, while the total disk storage systems market grew 1.1 percent to $6.6 billion. On the other hand, total disk storage systems capacity shipped reached 2,170 petabytes, up 41.7 percent.

 

Among the top five suppliers, EMC (News - Alert) and NetApp posted the strongest year-over-year revenue growth during 2Q08, with 16.2 percent and 13.8 percent growth, respectively. IDC Storage Research Analyst, Liz Conner said IP storage was the key driver behind the growth.

 

The total network disk storage market (NAS Combined with Open SAN) posted 15.3 percent year-over-year growth in the third quarter to more than $3.7 billion in revenues. EMC continues to maintain its leadership in the total network storage market with 27.9 percent revenue share, followed by HP with 12.3 percent revenue share.

 

"The midrange market (systems priced in the $15,000-$299,999 price range) was particularly strong in the third quarter, growing 15 percent year-over-year," Liz added. "IP storage played a major part in this growth fueled by the strong adoption of iSCSI SANs, specifically within virtualized server environments, as well as solid growth in NAS-based solutions, addressing the ever increasing growth in file-level data."