2009 Channel Best Sellers: Vendor Heavyweights Show Their Muscle

The 2009 Best-Sellers report features the best-selling vendors in systems, peripherals, security, storage, software and networking through distributors in 2008, as aggregated by The NPD Group for Everything Channel. As one might expect, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems were all over the place, combining to claim the most market share in seven of the 20 product categories.





HP also finished in the top five in eight categories, evidence of its breadth with channel partners. The following slides illustrate the top companies in each category. Each slide indicates the company name, its percentage share of all revenue in that product category through distributors in 2008 and the market-share percentage change from 2007. The vendor with the most share is highlighted in blue, while the company with the most share shift is highlighted in red.

HP combined for more desktop revenue through distributors than every other vendor combined, although Apple made some market-share gains during 2008.

HP claimed the top spot from Lenovo in 2008, while Panasonic finished a close third. As with desktops, Apple picked up the biggest market-share shift.

IBM and HP continue to dominate the server arena, accounting for more than 96 percent of the market. IBM widened its lead slightly in 2008.

Samsung maintained its top spot in 2008, with HP showing the most market-share gain. ViewSonic had the biggest slip and was passed by NEC Display Solutions, which took the No. 3 spot.

NEC continued to shine in this category, accounting for more than one-third of all dollars sold through distributors in 2008. Panasonic made the biggest leap, from 12.1 percent share in 2007 to 19.2 percent share last year.

Fujitsu continued to dominate the document scanner market, accounting for nearly half of all dollars in the category, while also gaining more share at the expense of competitors.

HP lost some share in 2008, but still accounted for nearly half of all revenue in the MFP category. Lexmark made the biggest market-share strides during the year.

HP dominated this category even more than MFPs and combined with Xerox to account for more than 80 percent of all dollars generated in 2008, according to NPD.

Epson passed InFocus as the top projector vendor in 2008, in terms of dollars sold through distributors. NEC gained some slight share to remain a solid third.

If you're talking UPSes, you're likely talking American Power Conversion (APC) by Schneider Electronics, which accounted for more than $4 out of every $5 sold through distributors last year, according to NPD.

Cisco Systems accounted for more than 40 percent share in 2008, while also gaining share compared with its next two closest competitors. McAfee was a distant fourth, but saw its share increase significantly last year.

Check Point Software Technologies accounted for more than two-thirds share in this category in 2008, according to NPD, also gaining share compared with competitors.

Trend Micro, with its ScanMail solution, accounted for more than 50 percent of all revenue through distributors last year in e-mail security software; it also gained some share. Symantec saw its share drop significantly, but the company also focused more on selling full security suites than unbundled e-mail security products.

Symantec, with its increased focus on suite selling, led the way with nearly 60 percent of all dollars sold through distribution last year. It also had a sizable jump in share compared with 2007.

Cisco dominated the category with nearly 70 percent of the market. D-Link made a sizable gain, but still accounted for a fraction of Cisco's sales through distribution last year.

Cisco (and Linksys Group) also dominated the wireless router market, accounting for 56.1 percent of dollars sold in 2008. D-Link had another sizable gain, passing Netgear in terms of market share last year.

Western Digital and Seagate/Maxtor accounted for nearly 70 percent of dollars sold through distribution last year, and both companies increased their share over competitors, too.

Buffalo Technology slipped slightly but still retained its place as the best-selling NAS vendor in 2008, edging out HP and NetApp.

Microsoft continued to dominate the relational database category with its SQL Server product line. Microsoft and IBM, along with FileMaker, showed some slight share gains in 2008, while Oracle slipped a bit.

Symantec/Veritas saw its share percentage slip last year, but still combined for more revenue through distribution than all other vendors combined. IBM and Acronis showed some share gains.