Worldwide Enterprise Storage Systems Market Revenue Grew 21.3% During the Second Quarter of 2018

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker, vendor revenue in the worldwide enterprise storage systems market increased 21.3% year over year to $13.2 billion during the second quarter of 2018 (2Q18). Total capacity shipments were up 70.7% year over year to 111.8 exabytes during the quarter.

Revenue generated by the group of original design manufacturers (ODMs) selling directly to hyperscale datacenters increased 31.7% year over year in 2Q18 to $3.3 billion. This represents 25.1% of total enterprise storage investments during the quarter. Sales of server-based storage increased 24.9% year over year to $3.8 billion in revenue. This represents 28.5% of total enterprise storage investments. The external storage systems market was worth slightly over $6.1 billion during the quarter, up 14.4% from 2Q17.

“Strong 2Q18 growth was driven by an ongoing infrastructure refresh cycle, investments in next-generation workloads, expanded use in public cloud services and data-driven initiatives,” said Sebastian Lagana, research manager, Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies. “The growing data economy is a big part of the current market growth. Companies of all sizes are investing in platforms that support their need to ingest, process, and disseminate large volumes of data cost effectively and without introducing new risks to the business.”

Overall Enterprise Storage Systems Market Results, by Company

Dell Inc. was the largest supplier for the quarter, accounting for 19.1% of total worldwide enterprise storage systems revenue and growing 26.6% over 2Q17. HPE/New H3C Group was the second largest supplier with 17.3% share of revenue and year-to-year growth of 1.9%. NetApp generated 6.3% of total revenue, making it the third largest vendor during the quarter. This represented 19.8% growth over 2Q17. IBM was the fourth largest supplier with a 4.6% share of market revenue during the quarter and year-over-year growth of 7.5%. Hitachi, Lenovo, and Huawei were all statistically tied* for the number 5 position with shares of 3.1%, 3.0%, and 2.7% respectively. As a single group, storage systems sales by ODMs directly to hyperscale datacenter customers accounted for 25.1% of global spending during the quarter, up 31.7% over 2Q17.

Top 5 Companies, Worldwide Total Enterprise Storage Systems Market, Second Quarter of 2018 (Revenues are in US$ Millions)
Company	2Q18 Revenue	2Q18 Market Share	2Q17 Revenue	2Q17 Market Share	2Q18/2Q17 Revenue Growth
1. Dell Inc. a	$2,524.5	19.1%	$1,993.6	18.3%	26.6%
2. HPE/New H3C Groupb	$2,288.5	17.3%	$2,246.0	20.6%	1.9%
3. NetApp	$832.2	6.3%	$694.6	6.4%	19.8%
4. IBM	$609.1	4.6%	$566.4	5.2%	7.5%
5. Hitachi*	$416.2	3.1%	$412.6	3.8%	0.9%
5. Lenovo*	$396.8	3.0%	$170.5	1.6%	132.8%
5. Huawei*	$356.1	2.7%	$310.0	2.8%	14.9%
ODM Direct	$3,318.0	25.1%	$2,520.2	23.1%	31.7%
Others	$2,489.4	18.8%	$1,995.5	18.3%	24.7%
Total	$13,230.6	100.0%	$10,909.5	100.0%	21.3%
Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker, September 6, 2018

Notes:

a – Dell Inc. represents the combined revenues for Dell and EMC.

b – Due to the existing joint venture between HPE and the New H3C Group, IDC will be reporting market share on a global level for HPE as “HPE/New H3C Group” starting from Q2 2016 and going forward.

* – IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide enterprise storage systems market when there is one percent difference or less in the revenue share of two or more vendors.

2Q18 External Enterprise Storage Systems Results, by Company

Dell Inc. was the largest external enterprise storage systems supplier during the quarter, accounting for 29.2% of worldwide revenues. NetApp finished in the number 2 position with 13.5% share of revenue during the quarter. HPE/New H3C Group was the third largest with 10.6% share of revenue. IBM and Hitachi rounded out the top 5 with 9.4% and 6.6% market share, respectively.

Notes:

a – Dell Inc. represents the combined revenues for Dell and EMC.

b – Due to the existing joint venture between HPE and the New H3C Group, IDC will be reporting external market share on a global level for HPE as “HPE/New H3C Group” starting from 2Q 2016 and going forward.

In addition to the table above, a graphic illustrating worldwide market share (based on revenues) for the top 5 external enterprise storage systems companies over the previous five quarters is available by viewing this press release on IDC.com.

Flash-Based Storage Systems Highlights

The total All Flash Array (AFA) market generated just over $2.0 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 41.7% year over year. The Hybrid Flash Array (HFA) market was worth slightly under $2.6 billion in revenue, up 20.8% from 2Q17.

Taxonomy Notes

IDC defines an Enterprise Storage System as a set of storage elements, including controllers, cables, and (in some instances) host bus adapters, associated with three 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. Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) sales are not included in this study.

IDC’s Worldwide Enterprise Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker is a quantitative tool for analyzing the global disk storage market on a quarterly basis. The Tracker includes quarterly shipments and revenues (both customer and factory), Terabytes, $/Gigabyte, Gigabyte/Unit, and Average Selling Value. Each criteria can be segmented by location, installation base, operating system, company, family, model, and region.