LTO Represents 87% of WW Tape Cartridges Revenues in 4Q10

Backup tape cartridge sales amounted to $209.08 million in the fourth quarter according to Back-Up Tape Tracker, a report from Santa Clara Consulting Group. LTO accounted for 87.2% of total with sales of $182.23 million.

The media market is expected to have sales of $209.75 million in the next quarter.

Total LTO sales grew to 6.4 million units in Q4 on the strength LTO-5 which more than doubled. It accounted for 10% of unit sales and 25% of dollars. LTO-4 was also up, representing 48% of units and 41% of dollars. LTO-3 was down 8% but still accounted for 30% of volume and 24% of dollars. LTO-1 and LTO-2 were also off. LTO-2 accounted for 11% of units and 9% of dollars. LTO-1 sold 1% of units and 1% of dollars. HP led the LTO market with a 34% share. Fuji was the second largest supplier and IBM was third. In Q1 LTO volume is expected to be supported LTO-5 and LTO-4 but the total will be slightly down as sales of earlier generations decline.

The DDS/DAT cartridge volume decreased to .9 million units in Q4. DAT-72 accounted for 38% of unit sales and 44% of the value of the segment. DAT-160 accounted for 21% of the value of the segment and DAT-320 held 8%. HP led the DDS/DAT market with a 68% share. Segment dollar sales amounted to $8.90 million.

DLT-S cartridge sales amounted to .2 million units. Quantum led the segment. It was followed by HP and Imation. DLT-S dollar sales are expected to be off to $7.81 million in the Q1. DLT-V sales were slightly down at .1 million units. Their value was $2.99 million. Quantum led the segment with a 34% share. HP was second at 29%. DLTtape IV cartridges accounted for 57% of units and VS-1 the balance. Segment sales are expected to be down in Q1.

AIT media supports its respective installed bases of drives. Total AIT cartridge volume in the quarter amounted to .1 million units. Sony had a 95% share in the segment.

Shipments of QIC cartridges in the quarter totaled .03 million units. Their value was $1.88 million. Imation dominated the segment with a market share of 90%.

The 8 million metal particle cartridge amounted to .01 million units worth $0.05 million. Sony led the segment with a 57% market share. Tandberg supplied 8 million metal evaporated cartridges for its VXA and Mammoth drives. Sales were .02 million units in the quarter.

Comments

From 3Q109 to 4Q10, the tape cartridge market grew 3.4% in dollars. SCCG predicts practically no growth for 1Q10.

All but LTO and DDS/DAT formats are dead if you look at the figures in this report. LTO is the only one slowly growing, quarterly from 6.2 million to 6.4 million. As usual, the last generation of LTO (-5) is increasing its market share compared to former ones (LTO-4,-3,-2, and -1) progressively replaced. There will be LTO-6, but it's not sure at all that HP will go further after current DAT-320, the share of this 8mm helical scan tape cartridge market regularly decreasing.

Simply adding the SCCG's results of each quarter, total tape media revenues for year 2010 amounted $816 million, down 15% compared to $956 million in 2009.

Note that this study does not include mainframe formats from IBM and Oracle/StorageTek, probably stable but representing high value.