WW Converged Systems Revenue Increases 8.3% in 2015 at $10.6 Billion – IDC

According to the International Data Corporation‘s Worldwide Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker, the worldwide converged systems market increased revenue 8.5% year over year to $3.1 billion during 4Q15.

The market generated 1,547PB of new storage capacity shipments during the quarter, which was up 26.9% compared to the same period a year ago. For the full year 2015, worldwide converged systems market revenue increased 8.3% to $10.6 billion when compared to 2014.

“We are seeing some of the market demand move into deals with lower ASPs, which is driving a shift from traditional converged systems to hyperconverged systems,” said Kevin M. Permenter, senior research analyst, enterprise servers. “Right now, most of the growth is coming from the mid-market, which is heavily skewed toward hyperconverged systems. We are expecting to see this trend continue into the near term.”

Converged Systems Segments
IDC distinguishes between three market segments: Integrated Systems, Certified Reference Systems, and Hyperconverged Systems.

• Integrated Systems are pre-integrated, vendor-certified systems containing server hardware, disk storage systems, networking equipment, and basic element/systems management software.
• Like integrated systems, Certified Reference Systems are pre-integrated, vendor-certified systems containing server hardware, disk storage systems, networking equipment, and basic element/systems management software. Certified reference systems, however, are designed with systems from multiple technology vendors.
• Hyperconverged Systems collapse core storage and compute functionality into a single, highly virtualized solution. A key characteristic of hyperconverged systems that differentiate these solutions from other integrated systems is their ability to provide all compute and storage functions through the same server-based resources.

During 4Q15, the Integrated Systems market generated revenues of more than $2.0 billion, which represented a year-over-year increase of 6.7% and 65.6% of the total market value. VCE was the largest supplier of Integrated Systems with $743 million in sales, or 36.3% share of the market segment.

Top 3 Vendors, WW Integrated Systems, 4Q15
(revenue in $ million)

Certified Reference Systems sales declined 13.1% year over year during the fourth quarter of 2015, generating more than $718.6 million worth of sales. This amounted to 23.0% of the total market value. Cisco/NetApp was the top-ranked supplier of Certified Reference Systems in the quarter, generating revenues of $336.72million and capturing a 46.86% share of the market segment.

Top 3 Vendors, WW Certified Reference Systems, 4Q15
(revenue in $ million)

Hyperconverged sales grew 170.5% year over year during the fourth quarter of 2015, generating more than $355.9 million worth of sales. This amounted to 11.4% of the total market value. Please note the above hyperconverged systems values, like the other product categories listed here, exclude revenue from support and maintenance contracts.

WW Converged Systems by Product Category, 4Q14/4Q15
(vendor revenue in $ million)

(Source: IDC Worldwide Converged Systems Tracker, March 31, 2016)

Taxonomy Notes:
IDC defines converged and hyperconverged systems as pre-integrated, vendor-certified systems containing server hardware, disk storage systems, networking equipment, and basic element/systems management software. Systems not sold with all four of these components are not counted within this tracker. Specific to management software, IDC includes embedded or integrated management and control software optimized for the auto discovery, provisioning and pooling of physical and virtual compute, storage and networking resources shipped as part of the core, standard integrated system.