IDC: Strong Growth In Storage Benefits EMC, Veritas, HP

Worldwide storage software revenue hit $6.3 billion in 2003, up 8 percent over the $5.8 billion sold in 2002, according to IDC. Fourth quarter sales in 2003 reached $1.8 billion, up nearly 18 percent from the $1.5 billion sold the year before.

For the full year in 2003, EMC retained the no. 1 spot, with storage software sales of $1.9 billion, or 30.7 percent of the entire market. That figure, which includes the sales from the mid-2003 Legato acquisition, was up 20.3 percent compared to the $1.6 billion in sales during 2002.

The Number Two spot went to Veritas, with $1.3 billion in sales, or 21.3 percent of the market. This was up 12.4 percent over the $1.2 billion in storage software sales it enjoyed the year before. At that time, the company was also in second place, according to IDC.

Computer Associates kept its third-place ranking, with $585 million in sales, up 1 percent from sales in 2002. But IBM's storage software sales grew 7.7 percent in 2003, bringing it close on the heels of CA with sales of $541 million. Hewlett-Packard rounded out the top five with sales of $499 million, up an impressive 45 percent from sales in 2002.

For the fourth quarter, the rankings among the top five vendors was the same. EMC led the quarter with revenue of $563 million, followed by Veritas at $389 million, CA at $174 million, IBM at $148 million, and HP at $141 million. Of the five, HP led in terms of growth, with sales up 28 percent over those in the fourth quarter of last year, while EMC and Veritas also exceeded the overall industry growth rate, IDC said.

IDC expects storage software growth to continue to be high in 2004 as vendors take advantage of growing storage hardware sales and increasing spending on disaster recovery and regulatory compliance issues.