Turbulent Times for EMEA External HDD Market – Futuresource Consulting

The external HDD drive market in EMEA is experiencing turbulent times, with NAS sales pushing forward and performing in a difficult market, according to the quarterly external HDD report from Futuresource Consulting Ltd.

“Across the EMEA region – where we track 17 countries – we’ve seen NAS sales hit a growth spurt,” says Mats Larsson, senior market analyst. “Our forecasts show NAS will grow 45% by the end of the year, shipping over 1.5 million units. However, it’s not all good news and we’re expecting total external HDD unit shipments to decline by 6% this year, with 22.2 million drives shipped in total.

“Looking at Q3, we saw a 7% overall decline, to 5.3 million external HDDs shipped, with the market performance differing widely from country to country. Many countries are still showing growth and there are pockets of opportunity open to vendors. However, market decline in key markets like Germany – which accounts for over 20% of total demand – has a colossal knock-on effect on the regional level.”

Vendor Shares
WD remains the market leader followed by Toshiba and then Seagate, together accounting for over 78% of the market, up from 73% 2013. However, the strongest growth comes from the WD-owned HGST and Samsung by Seagate.