16% Growth Y/Y for Spectra Logic

Spectra Logic Corporation announced record revenue and profitability results for fiscal year 2013, which ended June 30.

Consistently profitable, the company posted 16% year-over-year revenue growth, led by strong revenue growth of its Enterprise T-Finity tape library.

It posted record revenue for each quarter of fiscal year 2013 and has grown total revenue 67% since 2009. This success spans its product line with posted gains in revenues, units and capacity shipments for its T-Series midrange and enterprise tape libraries and media, as well as strong growth in professional services.

The company installed 1.2EBs of tape library storage capacity during fiscal year 2013.

“Spectra Logic’s accelerating momentum and record-setting results validate our long-standing commitment to customer support and satisfaction, and to delivering advanced storage technologies that help our customers solve long-term data retention challenges,” said Nathan Thompson, Spectra Logic’s CEO. “We are seeing a clear shift toward tape technologies and their unrivaled economic and capacity advantages as IT teams grapple with explosive data growth, tight IT budgets, and a prevailing mindset of ‘save all your data, forever‘.”

As organizations contend with the skyrocketing requirements and cost of storing long-term data, tape’s cost advantages and ability to meet demands for reliability, speed, capacity and ease of use position it as a clear choice for many of today’s toughest storage challenges.

This preference toward tape for long-term storage of very large data sets is reflected in tape industry growth rates as well as that of Spectra Logic:

IDC reports 8% year-over-year growth in aggregate shipments of midrange tape libraries with 100+ slots and enterprise tape libraries in calendar year 2012. (IDC Tape Qview Calendar Year 2012 Pivot Tables)
Spectra Logic reported 12% year-over-year aggregate revenue growth of its midrange tape libraries with 100+ slots and enterprise tape libraries during fiscal year 2013.
Spectra Logic’s strategic and technology partnerships contributed to its growth during the year.

“Data centers are extending tape’s usage beyond traditional backup and are rapidly deploying it within near-line, active archive, cloud and other emerging storage infrastructures,” added Thompson. “We expect the reinvigorated demand for tape to continue – and soon we’ll be unveiling exciting, new tape solutions that will bolster it further. Stay tuned.”

Other fiscal year 2013 Spectra Logic highlights include:

15% growth year-over-year in overall product revenues
24% growth in tape media revenues
16% growth in support and professional service revenues
14% revenue growth in enterprise tape libraries
6% revenue growth in small tape libraries (defined as having fewer than 100 slots)
Strong international expansion across Europe, Latin America and Asia, with products now installed in over 45 countries worldwide.
22% revenue growth in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa); expanded UK offices and increased personnel to support future growth
39% revenue growth in Latin America; established a regional office in Mexico City
64% revenue growth in AsiaPac/Japan (APJ); formed Melbourne-based subsidiary Spectra Logic Pty Ltd to serve as HQs for the APJ region
Awarded 12 new patents, which illustrate Spectra’s innovation investment and success.
Commenced shipping the fourth generation of Spectra’s disk-based storage, the nTier Verde.
Authored and published “Active Archive for Dummies” to help organizations meet the challenges of providing economical, highly available, long-term storage for fast-growing data volumes.
Launched the SpectraEDGE mobile application for reseller partners to receive real-time partner program highlights, news and sales tools previously only available on the SpectraEDGE portal.
Strong customer/employee satisfaction and a reputation for quality.
Outside Magazine named Spectra Logic as one of America’s Top 100 Best Places to Work, and recognized its commitment to a healthy work-life balance for employees.
It won the Storage Innovators Award at the 2013 UK Storage Awards, and outpaced twelve other companies, including IBM, Veeam and Symantec in the innovation category.
Spectra’s tape libraries garnered first place in the Storage magazine/SearchStorage.com Quality Awards winning both categories: Enterprise and midrange tape libraries. The 2012 Tape Library Quality awards marked the sixth time the company has won first place in a Quality Awards category.
Spectra received high customer accolades in a Taneja Group Research Study.

The trend toward ‘saving everything, forever’ is becoming more prevalent and shows no sign of reversing or slowing down. Spectra’s tape storage systems are suited to address long-term data retention, and the company is positioned to further its growth and success as it prepares to unveil exciting new tape solutions later this fall at its Spectra Summit 2013 event on October 7-9, 2013 in Broomfield, CO.