WW Enterprise External OEM Storage Systems Market Revenue Down 2.1% Y/Y in 4Q20 at $7.8 Billion, Continuing to Be Led by Dell

According to the IDC Corp.‘s Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker, global market revenue for enterprise external OEM storage systems declined 2.1% Y/Y to $7.8 billion during 4Q20.

Total external OEM storage capacity shipped was up 11.3% Y/Y to 23.8EB during the quarter.

Revenue generated by the group of original design manufacturers (ODMs) selling directly to hyperscale datacenters grew 2.0% Y/Y to $6.6 billion in 4Q20, while capacity shipped grew by 7.6% Y/Y to 76EB. Total capacity shipments for the market (external OEM + ODM direct + server-based storage) increased 8.3% to 135.1EB.

“The external storage system market contracted for the fourth consecutive quarter in 4Q20, down 2.1% year over year, as the market for the full year 2020 closed out with a 4.0% decline,” said Greg Macatee, research analyst, infrastructure platforms and technologies group. “Geographically, the lone region to experience growth during the quarter was China (PRC), which grew nearly 30% Y/Y and was bolstered by strong performances from a series of locally headquartered vendors. Another of the overall enterprise storage systems market bright spots was the ODM Direct segment, which grew this quarter at a rate of 2.0% annually.“

Enterprise External OEM Storage Systems Results, by Company
Dell Technologies was the largest external enterprise storage systems supplier during the quarter, followed by HPE/New H3C Groupb. Huawei, NetApp, and IBM took the third, fourth, and fifth positions in the market, respectively.

Notes:
a Dell Technologies represents the combined revenues for Dell and EMC.
b Due to the existing joint venture between HPE and the New H3C Group, IDC is reporting external market share on a global level for HPE and New H3C Group as HPE/New H3C Group starting from 2Q 2016. Per the JV agreement, Tsinghua Holdings subsidiary, Unisplendour Corporation, through a wholly-owned affiliate, purchased a 51% stake in New H3C and HPE has a 49% ownership stake in the new company.

Flash-Based Storage Systems Highlights
The total AFA market generated $3.0 billion in revenue during the quarter, down 6.9% Y/Y. The hybrid flash array market was worth nearly $3.2 billion in revenue, increasing 5.8% from the year ago quarter.

Regional External Storage System Highlights
On a geographic basis, storage revenue in PRC grew 28.0% Y/Y. EMEA declined 2.4%, Japan declined 7.8%, while Canada and USA fell 8.7% and 10.1%, respectively. AsiaPac (excluding Japan and PRC) also contracted 14.4% annually, and Latin America fell 18.3%.

Taxonomy Notes
IDC defines an enterprise storage system as a set of storage elements, including controllers, cables, and (in some instances) HBAs, associated with 3 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 enterprise 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 sales are not included in this study.