2009 Storage Software Sales Dip, Hardware Sales Dive: Reports

The external disk storage market fell sharply in terms of revenue in 2009 despite strong growth in the amount of storage capacity shipped according to both Gartner and IDC.

However, analyst firm IDC said, the worldwide storage software market declined only slightly over 2008.

IDC on Monday estimated that total revenue for the worldwide storage software market in 2009 was $11.7 billion, down about 4.7 percent compared to its $12.3 billion estimate for 2008.

EMC was the overall storage software market leader with a 22.7-percent market share for all of 2009, IDC said. Symantec was number two with a 17.9-percent market share, followed by IBM with 13.5 percent, NetApp 8.0 percent, and CA with 4.0 percent.

All five top vendors saw storage software sales drop in 2009 compared to 2008 except for IBM, which actually enjoyed a 0.5-percent rise, IDC said.

On the hardware side, analyst firm Gartner estimated revenue for the worldwide external controller-based disk storage market in 2009 was $16.4 billion, down 8.6 percent from the $18.0 billion estimate for the market in 2008, despite a year-over-year increase in raw capacity shipments of 39.1 percent.

The estimate was close to that of rival IDC, which estimated that worldwide external disk storage system revenue reached $18.1 billion, down 10.2 percent from the $20.1 billion revenue for the industry in 2008.

The Gartner and IDC estimates are for disk storage connected to servers via an external storage controller.

IDC also estimated that total disk storage system revenue, which also includes storage inside a server, was $24.5 billion, down 11.9 percent compared to $27.8 billion in 2008.

Both analyst firms said EMC was the number one vendor of external storage sales for 2009, followed by IBM and Hewlett-Packard.

However, while Gartner cited Hitachi and Hitachi Data Systems as the number four supplier for 2009 in terms of revenue, followed by Dell and NetApp in a close tie for number five, IDC said NetApp and Dell were in a close tie for number four.

For total disk storage sales, HP was number one and IBM number two in 2009 because of their large server businesses, followed by EMC, Dell, and NetApp, IDC said.

Both Gartner and IDC called IBM and NetApp the winners in terms of revenue growth for external disk storage.

IBM's revenue fell a mere 0.8 percent in 2009 over 2008, while NetApp's revenue fell only 1.7 percent during that same period, both much less than the total market, Gartner said.

IDC estimated that NetApp's total external disk storage sales fell 2.5 percent and IBM's 3.9 percent in 2009, both much less than the industry as a whole.

The reported drop in storage revenue for 2009 was much worse than the relatively mild drop for 2008.

IDC in March of 2009 reported total disk storage systems sales worldwide declined 5.9 percent in 2008 compared to 2007.

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