FRAMINGHAM, Mass., March 4, 2011 – Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues posted year-over-year growth of 16.2%, totaling just under $6.1 billion, in the fourth quarter of 2010 (4Q10), according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker. For the quarter, the total disk storage systems market grew to just shy of $8.3 billion in revenues, representing 14.3% growth from the prior year's fourth quarter. Total disk storage systems capacity shipped reached 5,127 petabytes, growing 55.7% year over year.

"The fourth quarter of 2010 continued the trend of economic recovery, and helped close a successful year for disk storage," said Liz Conner, senior research analyst, Storage Systems. "Aiding in the fourth quarter gains, and all of 2010, was the continued growth of network storage, growing 21.7% from 4Q09 to 4Q10 and 25.7% from 2009 to 2010. Reduction in IT budget constraints has allowed end users to take advantage of vertical and use-case specific network storage products introduced in the past 12 to 18 months."

Total External Disk Storage Systems, 4Q10

EMC maintained its lead in the external disk storage systems market with 26.0% revenue share in the fourth quarter, followed by IBM in second and HP in third with 16.3% and 11.6% market share respectively. NetApp ended the quarter in fourth position, with 10.3%. Hitachi and Dell were statistically tied* for fifth with 8.7% and 7.9% respectively. Given the recent acquisitions of Isilon and Compellent, IDC notes that for 4Q10, Isilon's and Compellent's share in the total external disk storage systems market was 0.78% and 0.55% respectively.

Open Networked Disk Storage Systems

The total open networked disk storage market (NAS Combined with Open / iSCSI SAN) grew 21.7% year over year in the fourth quarter to $5.1 billion in revenues. EMC continues to maintain its leadership in the total open networked storage market with 29.7% revenue share, followed by IBM with a 15.2% revenue share.

In the Open SAN market, which grew 15.1% year over year, EMC was the leading vendor with 20.1% revenue share, followed by IBM in second and HP in third with 19.0% and 15.4% share, respectively.

The NAS market grew 41.3% year over year, led by EMC with 52.8% revenue share and followed by NetApp with 23.7% share. The iSCSI SAN market continues to show strong momentum, posting 42.1% revenue growth compared to the prior year's quarter. Dell led the market with 32.6% revenue share, followed by HP in second and EMC in third with 14.7% and 13.4% market share respectively.

"The high-end segment (average selling price $250,000 and over) was seasonally strong in the fourth quarter, showing the highest sequential growth across all storage segments," said Amita Potnis, senior research analyst, Storage Systems. "After significant declines during the 2009 crisis and the strong recovery in 2010, the high-end revenue market share is now 30.2%, thus bouncing back to the 2008 pre-crisis levels. There were multiple drivers beyond the remarkable growth in high-end systems, including demand for storage consolidation and datacenter upgrades supported by new product push from a number of vendors."

Source: IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker, March 3, 2011

* Notes:

• IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide disk storage market when there is less than one percent difference in the factory revenues of two or more vendors.
• Starting in Q2 2010, HP is reported as the combined entity of HP and H3C. Starting in Q4 2010, HP is reported as the combined entity of HP and 3PAR.

Total Disk Storage Systems Market, 4Q10

In the total worldwide disk storage systems market, HP and EMC finished in a statistical tie* for the top position, in terms of market share, with HP at 19.2% market share and EMC at 19.2% market share.

Source: IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker, March 3, 2011

* Notes:

• IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide disk storage market when there is less than one percent difference in the factory revenues of two or more vendors.
• Starting in Q2 2010, HP is reported as the combined entity of HP and H3C. Starting in Q4 2010, HP is reported as the combined entity of HP and 3PAR.

Total External Disk Storage Systems, 2010

Factory revenues for the external disk storage systems market grew by 18.3% to $21.2 billion in 2010 compared to 2009. EMC was the leading vendor for the full year with a 25.6% market share. IBM was the number 2 vendor with 13.8% share, followed by NetApp and HP in a statistical tie* for the number 3 position with 11.1% share each and number 5 Dell with a 9.1% share.

Source: IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker, March 3, 2011

* Notes:

• IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide disk storage market when there is less than one percent difference in the factory revenues of two or more vendors.
• Starting in Q3 2009, EMC is reported as the combined entity of EMC and Data Domain.
• Starting in Q2 2010, HP is reported as the combined entity of HP and H3C. Starting in Q4 2010, HP is reported as the combined entity of HP and 3PAR.

Total Disk Storage Systems Market, 2010

Factory revenues for the total disk storage systems market grew by 18.0% to $28.7 billion in 2010 compared to 2009. HP and EMC are the leading vendors, finishing the full year in a statistical tie* at 19.0% of the market each, followed by IBM and Dell with 16.0% and 11.9% share, respectively.

Source: IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker, March 3, 2011

* Note:

• IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide disk storage market when there is less than one percent difference in the factory revenues of two or more vendors.
• Starting in Q3 2009, EMC is reported as the combined entity of EMC and Data Domain.
• Starting in Q2 2010, HP is reported as the combined entity of HP and H3C. Starting in Q4 2010, HP is reported as the combined entity of HP and 3PAR.

Taxonomy Notes:

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 Disk Storage Systems Quarterly 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.

For more information about IDC's Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker, please contact Hoang Nguyen at 508-935-4718 or hnguyen@idc.com.

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