Server-Based Storage Demand Pushs 1Q2015 Enterprise Spending

Total worldwide enterprise storage systems factory revenue grew 6.8% year over year to nearly $8.8 billion during the first quarter of 2015 (1Q15), according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker.

Total capacity shipments were up 41.1% year over year to 28.3 exabytes during the quarter.

"Following a busy end-of-year spending environment, the enterprise storage market fell back into what has become a familiar market pattern," said Eric Sheppard, Research Director, Storage at IDC. "Spending on traditional external arrays fell during the quarter while demand for server-based storage and hyperscale infrastructure was up strongly during the quarter."

1Q15 Total Disk Storage Systems Market Results

EMC finished in the top position within the total worldwide enterprise storage systems market, accounting for 17.4% of all spending in 1Q15.

HP held the number 2 position with a 14.6% share of spending during the quarter.

Dell accounted for 10.2% of global spending. As a collective group, storage systems sales by original design manufacturers (ODM's) selling directly to hyperscale datacenter customers accounted for 12.6% of global spending during the quarter.

Open Networked Disk Storage Systems Highlights

The total open networked disk storage market (NAS Combined with non-mainframe SAN) generated $6.3 billion in revenue during the quarter.

EMC maintained its leadership in the total open networked storage market with 29.8% revenue share. NetApp generated 15.6% of revenue within this market segment.

1Q15 External Disk Storage Systems Results

EMC was the largest external storage systems supplier during the quarter, accounting for 27.3% of sales.

NetApp generated 13.6% of total sales during the quarter.

HP and Hitachi ended the quarter in a statistical tie* for the third position with 9.1% and 9.0% share of worldwide revenue, respectively.

Top 5 Vendors, Worldwide External Disk Storage Systems Market, First Quarter of 2015 (Revenues are in Millions)

IDC defines a Disk Storage System as a set of storage elements, including controllers, cables, and (in some instances) host bus adapters, associated with three or more disks.

A system may be located outside of or within a server cabinet and the average cost of the disk storage systems does not include infrastructure storage hardware (i.e. switches) and non-bundled storage software.

The information in this quantitative study is based on a branded view of the disk storage systems sale.

Revenue associated with the products to the end user is attributed to the seller (brand) of the product, not the manufacturer.

Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) sales are not included in this study. In this study, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) sales do not reflect their OEM sales to Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard.

IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker is a quantitative tool for analyzing the global disk storage market on a quarterly basis.

The Tracker includes quarterly shipments and revenues (both customer and factory), Terabytes, $/Gigabyte, Gigabyte/Unit, and Average Selling Value.

Each criteria can be segmented by location, installation base, operating system, vendor, family, model, and region.

IDC Tracker products provide accurate and timely market size, vendor share, and forecasts for hundreds of technology markets from more than 100 countries around the globe.

Using proprietary tools and research processes, IDC's Trackers are updated on a semiannual, quarterly, and monthly basis. Tracker results are delivered to clients in user-friendly excel deliverables and on-line query tools.

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