HPE Takes Storage Market Second Place After A Quarter NetApp Would Rather Forget
The second quarter of 2019 was a good one for Hewlett Packard Enterprise's storage sales. The company, one of only two major branded storage vendors along with Hitachi to see year-over-year growth in the quarter, enjoyed by far the largest growth rate in the industry, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker.
For the storage industry as a whole, it was a tough quarter. Total worldwide enterprise external OEM storage systems for the industry fell 0.8 percent year-over-year to $6.3 billion, while total enterprise external OEM storage capacity shipments grew a modest 5.2 percent to 16.3 exabytes.
Part of the drop in storage revenue came from an unexpected 0.7-percent drop in all-flash storage array sales to $2.1 billion. All-flash storage has until now been one of the fastest-growing parts of the storage market.
The second calendar quarter of 2019 represents what appears to be an overall slowing down of the storage market. Will that continue? Time will tell.
In the meantime, for a look at how IDC is changing how it presents some of the numbers in its quarterly report, and a look at some of the details behind the vendors' numbers, turn the page and get strapped in for what may become a wild ride.
