WW Enterprise Storage Revenue Declined 2.2% Y/Y to $10.4 Billion in 4Q15

Total worldwide enterprise storage systems factory revenue declined 2.2% year over year to $10.4 billion during 4Q15, according to the International Data Corporation‘s Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker.

Total capacity shipments were up 10.7% Y/Y to 35.5EB during the quarter.

Revenue growth declined within the group of original design manufacturers (ODMs) that sell directly to hyperscale datacenters. This portion of the market was down 14.4% year over year to $1.2 billion.

Sales of server-based storage were up 6.1% during the quarter and accounted for $2.2 billion in revenue.

External storage systems remained the largest market segment, but the $7.0 billion in sales represented a 2.3% Y/Y decline.

4Q15 Total Enterprise Storage Systems Market Results
EMC finished in the top position within the total worldwide enterprise storage systems market, capturing 21.5% of all revenue. HPE was the number 2 vendor with 15.1% share of revenue during the quarter while Dell and IBM finished tied* for the number 3 position with worldwide shares of 8.9% and 8.6% respectively. As a group, storage systems sales by ODMs selling directly to hyperscale datacenter customers accounted for 11.2% of global spending during the quarter.

Top 5 Vendors, WW Enterprise Storage Systems Market, 4Q15
(revenues in $ million)

WW Enterprise Storage Systems Market, Top 5 Vendors, 4Q14-4Q15
(shares based on revenue)

4Q15 External Enterprise Storage Systems Results
EMC was the largest external enterprise storage systems supplier during the quarter, accounting for 31.7% of worldwide revenues. IBM finished in the number 2 position with 11.3% share. HPE and NetApp finished the quarter in a statistical tie* for the number 3 position with 10.1% and 9.3% share of worldwide revenues, respectively. Hitachi rounded out the top 5 with a 7.6% share of worldwide external enterprise storage revenue during the quarter.

Top 5 Vendors, WW External Enterprise Storage Systems Market, 4Q15
(revenues in $ million)

Flash-Based Storage Systems Highlights
The total All Flash Array (AFA) market generated $955.4 million in revenue during the quarter, up 71.9% year over year. The Hybrid Flash Array (HFA) segment of the market continues to be a significant part of the overall market with $2.9 billion in revenue and 28.0% market share.

2015 Total Enterprise Storage Systems Market Results
EMC finished in the top position within the total worldwide enterprise storage systems market, capturing 19.2% of all revenue. HPE was the number 2 vendor with 15.5% share of revenue during the year. Dell finished in the number 3 position with a worldwide share of 9.7%. As a group, storage systems sales by original design manufacturers (ODMs) selling directly to hyperscale datacenter customers accounted for 12.3% of global spending during the quarter.

Top 5 Vendors, WW Total Enterprise Storage Systems Market, 2015
(revenues in $ million)

IBM’s 3Q15 and 4Q15 revenue excludes x86 servers due to the sale of that business to Lenovo.

2015 External Enterprise Storage Systems Results
EMC was the largest external enterprise storage systems supplier during the quarter with a 29.6% share of worldwide revenues. NetApp finished in the number 2 position with 11.1% share. HPE and IBM finished the quarter in a statistical tie* for the number 3 position with 10.0% and 10.0% share of worldwide revenues, respectively. Hitachi rounded out the top 5 with a 7.7% share of worldwide external enterprise storage revenue during the year.

Top 5 Vendors, WW External Enterprise Storage Systems Market, 2015
(revenues in $ million)

(Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker, March 11, 2016)

Note: IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide enterprise storage systems market when there is less than one% difference in the revenue share of two or more vendors.

Taxonomy Notes

• IDC defines a disk storage system as a set of storage elements, including controllers, cables, and (in some instances) HBAs, associated with three or more disks. A system may be located outside of or within a server cabinet and the average cost of the disk storage systems does not include infrastructure storage hardware (i.e. switches) and non-bundled storage software.
• The information in this quantitative study is based on a branded view of the disk storage systems sale. Revenue associated with the products to the end user is attributed to the seller (brand) of the product, not the manufacturer. OEM (OEM) sales are not included in this study. In this study, HDS sales do not reflect their OEM sales to Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard.
• IDC’s Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker is a quantitative tool for analyzing the global disk storage market on a quarterly basis. The Tracker includes quarterly shipments and revenues (both customer and factory), Terabytes, $/Gigabyte, Gigabyte/Unit, and average selling value. Each criteria can be segmented by location, installation base, OS, vendor, family, model, and region.