+10% Y/Y Revenue Growth in 4Q13 for WW Purpose-Built Backup Appliance

Worldwide purpose-built backup appliance (PBBA) factory revenues posted a 9.7% year-over-year increase totaling $962.4 million in 4Q13, according to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Purpose-Built Backup Appliance Tracker.

In addition, the total PBBA open systems market grew 8.7% year over year in 4Q13 with revenues totaling $860.9 million while the mainframe market experienced an 18.3% increase. The total worldwide PBBA market for the full year 2013 posted a 9.4% increase totaling nearly $3.1 billion. Total worldwide PBBA capacity shipped reached 509.067PB, growing 8.0% year over year.

“The total worldwide PBBA market continued to experience robust growth outpacing the worldwide external disk array and the data protection and recovery software markets,” said Robert Amatruda, research director, data protection and recovery, IDC. “PBBA solutions continue to gain velocity as customers of all sizes embrace them as a turnkey, simplified approach to data protection and recovery.”

Total Worldwide PBBA 4Q13 Results
EMC maintained its lead in the overall PBBA market with 67.4% revenue share in the fourth quarter, followed by Symantec and IBM and with 9.8% and 7.8% market share, respectively. HP and Quantum remained in the top 5 PBBA vendors with share positions of 4.0% and 1.8%, respectively.

 Top 5 Vendors, WW PBBA Factory Revenue, 4Q13
 (in $million)

 (Source: IDC Worldwide Purpose Built Backup Appliance Quarterly Tracker, March 19, 2014)

Taxonomy Notes:
IDC defines a PBBA as a standalone disk-based solution that utilizes software, disk arrays, server engine(s), or nodes that are used for a target for backup data and specifically data coming from a backup application (e.g., NetWorker, NetBackup, TSM, and Backup Exec) or can be tightly integrated with the backup software to catalog, index, schedule, and perform data movement. The PBBA products are deployed in standalone configurations or as gateways. PBBA solutions deployed in a gateway configuration connect to and store backup data on general-purpose storage. Here, the gateway device is serving as the component that is purpose built solely for backup and not for supporting any other workload or application. Regardless of packaging (as an appliance or gateway), PBBAs can have multiple interfaces or protocols. Also, PBBAs often can provide and receive replication to or from remote sites and a secondary PBBA for the purpose of DR.

IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Purpose Built Backup Appliance Tracker provides vendor share, market size, and forecasts for purpose-built backup appliances. IDC provides key market insights and growth for vendors participating in the PBBA market as well as those that may introduce new products. Revenue and capacity for disk systems behind PBBA gateways is included in the PBBA market sizing and also in the forecast. Some PBBA solutions integrate the data movement engine (backup application) with the appliance, while others serve as only a target for incoming backup application data. Both solutions are included in the PBBA market sizing, although segmentation between the two product categories is provided.