Worldwide disk storage systems markets post solid gains for Q4 and 2011

FRAMINGHAM, USA: Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues posted year-over-year growth of 7.7 percent, totaling just under $6.6 billion, in the fourth quarter of 2011 (4Q11), according to the International Data Corp. (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker.

For the quarter, the total disk storage systems market grew to just over $8.5 billion in revenues, representing 3.5% growth from the prior year's fourth quarter. Total disk storage systems capacity shipped reach 6,279 petabytes, growing 22.4 percent year over year.

"The external disk storage systems market ended 2011 with strong year-over-year revenue growth that helped to push the market to 10.6 percent growth for the entire year," said Liz Conner, senior research analyst, Storage Systems. "Helping to drive the overall market growth were the emerging regions, which posted high, sustained growth in 2011. In contrast, the mature regions saw growth soften as their economies entered the recession recovery phase. Another factor underlying the 2011 growth, and specifically the fourth quarter gain, was the delayed impact of the drive shortage caused by the Thailand floods. The enterprise storage market is expected to start feeling the brunt of this shortage in 2012, resulting in minimal impact on the fourth quarter and 2011 as a whole."

4Q11 external disk storage systems results
EMC maintained its lead in the external disk storage systems market with 29.4 percent revenue share in the fourth quarter, followed by IBM in second with 15.2 percent market share. NetApp and HP tied for third with 11.2 percent and 10.3 percent market shares, respectively. Hitachi ended the quarter in fifth position, with 9.2 percent share.

Open networked disk storage systems highlights
The total open networked disk storage market (NAS Combined with Open / iSCSI SAN) grew 9.6 percent year over year in the fourth quarter to $5.6 billion in revenues. EMC continues to maintain its leadership in the total open networked storage market with 32.6 percent revenue share, followed by IBM with a 14.6 percent revenue share.

In the Open SAN market, which grew 14.1 percent year over year, EMC was the leading vendor with 26.7 percent revenue share, followed by IBM in second and HP in third with 18 percent and 12.7 percent shares, respectively.

The NAS market declined 1.2 percent year over year, led by EMC with 48.8 percent revenue share and followed by NetApp with 29.4 percent share. The iSCSI SAN market continues to show strong momentum, posting 16.6 percent revenue growth compared to the prior year's quarter. Dell led the market with 30.8 percent revenue share, followed by EMC in second and HP in third with 20.4 percent and 12.8 percent market shares, respectively.

"The high-end segment (average selling price $250,000 and over) followed a seasonal trend in the fourth quarter with highest sequential growth across all storage segments," said Amita Potnis, senior research analyst, Storage Systems. "The share of high-end storage systems increased from 28.2 percent in 2010 to 30 percent in 2011. This increase was most notable outside the United States. Drivers for this increase include economic recovery, storage consolidation, and datacenter build-up and upgrades."