Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues fell -5.2% year over year to $5.6 billion during the first quarter of 2014 (1Q14), according to IDC.
For the quarter, the total (internal plus external) disk storage systems market generated $7.3 billion in revenue, representing a decrease of -6.9% from the prior year's first quarter and a sequential decline of -17% compared to the seasonally stronger 4Q13.
Total disk storage systems capacity shipped was 9.9 exabytes, growing just 19.9% year over year.
"The poor results of the first quarter were driven by several factors, the most important of which was a -25% decline in high-end storage spending," says Eric Sheppard, Research Director, IDC Storage.
"Other important contributors to the market decline include the mainstream adoption of storage optimisation technologies, a general trend towards keeping systems longer, economic uncertainty, and the ability of customers to address capacity needs on a micro and short-term basis through public cloud offerings."
1Q14 External Disk Storage Systems Results:
EMC was the largest supplier, but experienced a year-over-year share loss during the quarter. The company captured 29.1% of the external disk storage revenue during the quarter, which was down from 30.2% the year prior.
NetApp was the second largest supplier in the market with 15.1% share of external revenue (up from 14.8% in 1Q13).
HP, IBM, and Hitachi finished the quarter in a statistical tie* for the third position with shares of 8.8%, 8.8% and 8.7% respectively.
Dell was the sixth largest supplier of external storage, generating 7.3% of the revenue during the quarter.
Open Networked Disk Storage Systems Highlights:
The total open networked disk storage market (NAS Combined with non-mainframe SAN) fell -3.9% year over year to $4.9 billion in revenue
EMC maintained its leadership in the total open networked storage market with 31.5% revenue share, but lost share compared to the 33.4% the company generated in 1Q13.
NetApp was the second largest supplier with 17.3% share, followed by HP (8.9%), IBM (8.6%), and Hitachi (8.3%), all of whom tied* for third place.
