Snapshot: EMC Leads Disk Storage Systems in First Quarter Sales

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 07/02/15

Demand for enterprise storage systems has gone up nearly seven percent in the last year, according to tech research firm IDC. The big winner among the top five storage companies was HP, which grew its business by 19 percent in the first quarter of 2015 compared to 1Q2014.

However, EMC, which took in $1.5 billion in storage system sales during that same period, was declared the largest vendor by revenue. EMC's share represented 17 percent of all spending in the first quarter. HP's share during that same time was almost 15 percent.

IDC reported in its Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker that total capacity reached 28.3 exabytes during the quarter, an increase of 41 percent year over year. The company defines a disk storage system as having at least three disks.

That growth represents more demand for server-based storage and hyperscale infrastructure (such as that used in server farms) and less call for traditional external arrays, according to Research Director Eric Sheppard.

EMC led sales of "open networked disk storage," network attached storage and non-mainframe storage area network gear, as well as sales of external storage systems.

Leading storage vendors in the first quarter of 2015 included:

  • EMC with $1.5 billion in revenue (down 6.7 percent) and a market share of 17.4 percent;
  • HP, with $1.3 billion in revenue (up 19 percent) and a market share of 14.6 percent;
  • Dell, with $897 million in revenue (up 6 percent) and a market share of 10.2 percent;
  • NetApp, with $765 million in revenue (down 10.5 percent) and a market share of 6 percent; and
  • IBM, with $525 million in revenue (down 29 percent) and a market share of 6 percent.

Additional information is available in IDC's "Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker," a tool for tracking quarterly sales activities among storage vendors.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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