Momentum within the cloud computing services arena continues to drive a shift in demand for a variety of storage solutions. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), total worldwide enterprise storage systems revenue grew 2.8 percent year-over-year to $9.1 billion during the third quarter of 2015 (3Q15).
Total capacity shipments were up 31.5 percent year-over-year to 33.1 exabytes during the quarter. Revenue growth was strongest within the group of original design manufacturers (ODMs) that sell directly to those organizations building hyperscale data centers.
This portion of the market was up 23.4 percent year over year to $1.3 billion. Sales of server-based storage solutions were up 9.9 percent during the quarter and accounted for $2.1 billion in revenue. External storage systems remained the largest market segment. However, the $5.8 billion in sales represented a decline of -3.1 percent year-over-year.
"The enterprise storage market continued to follow a consistent trend in the third quarter of 2015," said Liz Conner, research manager at IDC. "Spending on traditional external arrays declined during the quarter as infrastructure refresh, coupled with the demand for software-defined storage and cloud-based storage, drove investments more heavily in server-based storage and hyperscale infrastructure."
Total Disk Storage Systems Market Results
EMC was in the top position within the total worldwide enterprise storage systems market, capturing 18.4 percent of all revenue. HP was the number 2 vendor with 16.3 percent share of revenue during the quarter, while Dell finished in the number 3 position with a share of 9.9 percent.
As a group, storage systems sales by original design manufacturers (ODMs) selling directly to hyperscale data center customers accounted for 13.7 percent of global spending during the quarter.
External Disk Storage Systems Results
EMC was the largest external storage systems supplier during the quarter. The company accounted for 29.1 percent of worldwide revenues. NetApp and HP finished the quarter in a statistical tie for the number 2 position with 11.3 percent and 10.4 percent share of worldwide revenues, respectively.
IBM held a 9.3 percent share while Hitachi rounded out the top 5 with a 7.8 percent share of worldwide external storage revenue during the quarter.
Flash-Based Storage Systems Highlights
The total All Flash Array (AFA) market generated $626.2 million in revenue during the quarter, up 60.8 percent year over year. The Hybrid Flash Array (HFA) segment of the market continues to be a significant part of the overall market with $2.4 billion in revenue and 26.5 percent market share.
