According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker, global market revenue for enterprise external OEM storage systems declined 2,1% year over year to $7,8-billion during the fourth quarter of 2020 (4Q20).
Total external OEM storage capacity shipped was up 11,3% year over year to 23,8 exabytes during the quarter.
Revenue generated by the group of original design manufacturers (ODMs) selling directly to hyperscale datacenters grew 2% year over year to $6,6-billion in 4Q20, while capacity shipped grew by 7,6% year over year to 76 exabytes.
Total capacity shipments for the market (External OEM + ODM Direct + Server-Based Storage) increased 8,3% to 135,1 exabytes.
“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% decline,” says Greg Macatee, research analyst, Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies Group at IDC.
“Geographically, the lone region to experience growth during the quarter was China (PRC), which grew nearly 30% year over year 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% annually.”
Enterprise External OEM Storage Systems
Dell Technologies was the largest external enterprise storage systems supplier during the quarter, followed by HPE/New H3C Group.
Huawei, NetApp, and IBM took the third, fourth, and fifth positions in the market, respectively.
Flash-Based Storage Systems Highlights
The total All Flash Array (AFA) market generated $3-billion in revenue during the quarter, down 6.9% year over year. The Hybrid Flash Array (HFA) 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% year over year. EMEA declined 2,4%, Japan declined 7,8% year over year, while Canada and the US fell 8,7% and 10,1%, respectively. Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan and PRC) also contracted 14,4% annually, and Latin America fell 18,3%.