FRAMINGHAM, Mass., March 2, 2012 – Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues posted year-over-year growth of 7.7%, totaling just under $6.6 billion, in the fourth quarter of 2011 (4Q11), 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 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% 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% 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% revenue share in the fourth quarter, followed by IBM in second with 15.2% market share. NetApp and HP tied* for third with 11.2% and 10.3% market shares, respectively. Hitachi ended the quarter in fifth position, with 9.2% share.

Open Networked Disk Storage Systems Highlights

The total open networked disk storage market (NAS Combined with Open / iSCSI SAN) grew 9.6% 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% revenue share, followed by IBM with a 14.6% revenue share.

In the Open SAN market, which grew 14.1% year over year, EMC was the leading vendor with 26.7% revenue share, followed by IBM in second and HP in third with 18.0% and 12.7% shares, respectively.

The NAS market declined 1.2% year over year, led by EMC with 48.8% revenue share and followed by NetApp with 29.4% share. The iSCSI SAN market continues to show strong momentum, posting 16.6% revenue growth compared to the prior year's quarter. Dell led the market with 30.8% revenue share, followed by EMC in second and HP in third with 20.4% and 12.8% 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% in 2010 to 30.0% 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."

Source: IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker, March 1, 2012

Notes:

• Starting in Q4 2010, HP is reported as the combined entity of HP and 3PAR.
• Starting in Q1 2011, EMC is reported as the combined entity of EMC and Isilon.
• Starting in Q1 2011, Dell is reported as the combined entity of Dell and Compellent.
• * 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.

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4Q11 Total Disk Storage Systems Market Results

In the total worldwide disk storage systems market, EMC finished in the top position followed by HP with market shares of 22.6% and 17.7% respectively.

Source: IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker, March 1, 2012

* Notes:

• Starting in Q4 2010, HP is reported as the combined entity of HP and 3PAR.
• Starting in Q1 2011, EMC is reported as the combined entity of EMC and Isilon.
• Starting in Q1 2011, Dell is reported as the combined entity of Dell and Compellent.

2011 External Disk Storage Systems Results

Factory revenues for the worldwide external disk storage systems market grew by 10.6% to $23.5 billion in 2011 compared to 2010. EMC and IBM are the leading vendors for the full year with 28.5% and 13.5% of the market respectively, followed by NetApp and HP with 12.4% and 10.7% shares, respectively.

Source: IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker, March 1, 2012

Note:

• Starting in Q4 2010, HP is reported as the combined entity of HP and 3PAR.
• Starting in Q1 2011, EMC is reported as the combined entity of EMC and Isilon.
• Starting in Q1 2011, Dell is reported as the combined entity of Dell and Compellent.

2011 Total Disk Storage Systems Market Results

Factory revenues for the total disk storage systems market grew by 8.2% to $31.1 billion in 2011 compared to 2010. EMC and HP are the leading vendors for the year with 21.5% and 18.5% of the market, respectively, followed by IBM and Dell with 15.4% and 11.4% shares, respectively.

Source: IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker, March 1, 2012

Note:

• Starting in Q4 2010, HP is reported as the combined entity of HP and 3PAR.
• Starting in Q1 2011, EMC is reported as the combined entity of EMC and Isilon.
• Starting in Q1 2011, Dell is reported as the combined entity of Dell and Compellent.

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 Lidice Fernandez at 305-351-3051 or lfernandez@idc.com.

About IDC

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