Storage Commercial Channel Up 10% in 2012 in USA

Sales through U.S. distributors and commercial resellers remained flat for the third consecutive year at approximately $58.5 billion according to global information company The NPD Group‘s Distributor Track and Reseller Tracking Services.

Since Q2 2011, only one quarter experienced measurable sales growth.

Nearly three-quarters (72.5%) of all commercial sales revenue came from the top five revenue categories, a number that has been essentially unchanged over the last 4 years. Computers and servers, consumables, networking equipment, software, and storage products were the top five revenue drivers in 2012.

                           Yearly Revenue Change
                       Top Five Revenue Categories

 (Source: The NPD Group/Distributor Track
 and Reseller Tracking Services)

"Small and medium business decision makers haven’t stopped spending, but their focus is on productive and necessary IT spending, not general technology improvement," said Stephen Baker, VP of industry analysis at NPD. "The trend we watched during the first three quarters of 2012 through our SMB Technology Monitor, was that SMBs planned to spend more in the coming three months on the necessities, like networking, where sales increased 2% and storage where spending soared by more than 10%."

Sales through specific channels, such as distribution or resellers, showed little deviation from the overall market trend. Distribution sales accounted for 62% of dollars and grew less than 1% in2012. Reseller sales were 38% of the volume and fell slightly more than 1%. These represented slight variations from 2011 when distribution sales fell 1% and reseller sales rose 4%.

Total PC sales fell 7% in units in 2012, while average prices jumped nearly $35 to $764. Desktop unit sales rose 4% from 2011 with Windows volumes increasing 5.2%. Notebook sales overall fell 13% as Windows notebooks dropped 16% and Mac sales rose 15%. Windows 8 accounted for 18% of notebook sales and 5% of desktop sales through commercial channels in Q4. Storage hardware growth was propelled by a more than 50% increase in SSD sales and strong growth in storage systems, such as NAS, where sales revenue increased 13.5%.

"Steady demand for technology products through commercial and distribution sales channels is likely to continue in 2013," said Baker. "While significant overall sales growth does not seem to be on the horizon, the pockets of strong business demand, such as storage and networking continue to offset the overall sluggishness in the marketplace."