Worldwide Enterprise Storage Market Grew 3% Y/Y in 2Q17 – IDC

Total worldwide enterprise storage systems factory revenue was up 2.9% year over year and reached $10.8 billion in 2Q17, according to the International Data Corporation‘s Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker.

Total capacity shipments were up 16.5% year over year to 65.3EB during the quarter. Revenue growth increased within the group of original design manufacturers (ODMs) that sell directly to hyperscale datacenters. This portion of the market was up 73.5% year over year to $2.5 billion. Sales of server-based storage declined 13.4% during the quarter and accounted for $2.9 billion in revenue. External storage systems remained the largest market segment, but the $5.3 billion in sales represented a decline of 5.4% year over year.

“The enterprise storage market finished the second quarter of 2017 on a positive note, posting modest year-over-year growth and the first overall growth in several quarters,” said Liz Conner, research manager, storage systems. “Traditional storage vendors continue to expand their product portfolios to take advantage of the market swing towards all flash and converged/hyperconverged systems. Meanwhile, hyperscalers saw new storage initiatives and event-driven storage requirements lead to strong growth in this segment during the second quarter.”

2Q17 Total Enterprise Storage Systems Market Results, by Company
HPE/New H3C Group held the number one position within the total worldwide enterprise storage systems market, accounting for 20.1% of spending. Dell Inc. held the next position with a 18.4% share of revenue during the quarter. NetApp finished third with 6.4% market share. IBM finished in finished in fourth position, capturing 5.2% of global spending, and Hitachi rounded out the top 5 with 3.8% market share. As a single group, storage systems sales by ODMs selling directly to hyperscale datacenter customers accounted for 23.3% of global spending during the quarter.

Top 5 Vendor Groups, WW Total Enterprise Storage Systems Market, 2Q17
(revenue in $ million)
(Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker, September 14, 2017)

Notes:
a – Dell Inc. represents the combined revenues for Dell and EMC.
b – Due to the existing joint venture between HPE and the New H3C Group, IDC will be reporting external market share on a global level for HPE as HPE/New H3C Group starting from 2Q16 and going forward.
c – HPE/New H3C Group includes the acquisition of Nimble, completed in April 2017.
* – For this release of the Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker, IDC has completed a historical revision of the ODM Direct revenue and capacity going back to 1Q13.

2Q17 External Enterprise Storage Systems Results, by Company
Dell Inc. was the largest external enterprise storage systems supplier during the quarter, accounting for 28.4% of worldwide revenues. NetApp finished in the number two position and HPE in the number thee position with 13.0% and 11.6% of market share, respectively. IBM and Hitachi rounded out the top 5 with revenue shares of 10.1% and 7.5%, respectively.

Top 5 Vendors Groups, WW External Enterprise Storage Systems Market, 2Q17
(revenue in $ million)
(Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker, September 14, 2017)

Notes:
a – Dell Inc. represents the combined revenues for Dell and EMC.
b – Due to the existing joint venture between HPE and the New H3C Group, IDC will be reporting external market share on a global level for HPE as HPE/New H3C Group starting from 2Q16 and going forward.
c – HPE/New H3C Group includes the acquisition of Nimble, completed in April 2017.

Flash-Based Storage Systems Highlights
The total All-Flash Array (AFA) market generated over $1.4 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 37.6% Y/Y. The Hybrid Flash Array (HFA) segment of the market continues to be a significant part of the overall market with $2.1 billion in revenue and 19.6% of the total market share.

Taxonomy Notes
IDC defines an enterprise storage system as a set of storage elements, including controllers, cables, and (in some instances) HBAs, 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.