Features - Enterprise Data Insights:

EMC, HP DOMINATE EXT. DISK STORAGE SYSTEMS MKT.

Worldwide external disk storage systems vendor revenues grew 6.5 percent year-over-year to $3.5 billion in the first quarter of 2004 (1Q04), posting the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker. The total disk storage systems market grew at a slightly slower rate of 3.5 percent year-over-year, compared with 1Q03. Storage capacity continues to outpace revenue growth, growing 39.5 percent year-over-year to 247 petabytes shipped during the quarter.

"From an overall market standpoint, North America is the bright spot, delivering four consecutive quarters of real growth," said John McArthur, group vice president at IDC. "The weak dollar continues to be largely responsible for perceived growth in other major regions, however, and Western Europe is particularly challenging, with factory revenue flat to slightly down, even with the weakened dollar."

Total External Disk Storage Systems

EMC took the leadership position from HP in the external disk storage systems market, propelled by a 26 percent year-over-year revenue growth rate and now claiming 20.2 percent revenue market share in 1Q04. HP came in second with 18 percent revenue share followed by IBM with 12 percent share. Network Appliance and Dell also posted strong year-over-year revenue growth among the top vendors during first quarter of 2004, with 22.3 percent and 21.5 percent growth respectively.

External RAID continues to account for more than 90 percent of the external disk storage systems market, growing 8.9 percent year-over-year. EMC led the external RAID market with 22 percent revenue share, followed by HP with 16.9 percent share.

Networked Disk Storage Systems

The networked disk storage systems market (NAS combined with Open and iSCSI SAN) posted 17.5 percent year-over-year growth in the first quarter to more than $1.9 billion, largely due to strong absolute dollar growth in the Open SAN market. EMC continues to maintain its leadership in the total networked storage market with 28.5 percent revenue share, followed by HP and IBM with 22.8 percent and 10.5 percent revenue share, respectively.

In the Open SAN market, which grew 16.5 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago, EMC moved into a statistical tie with HP for the leadership position. HP and EMC had 27 percent and 26.8 percent revenue share, respectively. In the NAS market, Network Appliance moved into a virtual tie with EMC for the number 1 position. Network Appliance and EMC had 35.1 percent and 34.6 percent share, respectively.

Although representing less than 1 percent of the networked disk storage systems market, the iSCSI SAN market posted more than 40 percent quarter-over-quarter revenue growth with Network Appliance leading the market with 48.4 percent share, followed by EMC with 27.7 percent share.

"The migration from internal, direct-attached to external, networked storage continues, representing increased opportunity for storage systems suppliers," said Brad Nisbet, program manager at IDC. "Customers across all price segments of the market are looking to consolidate and simplify their infrastructure through networked storage."

Total Disk Storage Systems Market -- Internal plus External

In the total worldwide disk storage systems market, HP maintained its lead with 23.2 percent revenue share followed by IBM with 19.7 percent share. EMC maintained the third position with 13.9 percent revenue share. EMC and IBM posted the largest share gain year-over-year among the top vendors during 1Q04, with 2.5 and 1.4 points gain, respectively.