CIOL:India spurs ECB storage revenue Q4 growth

BANGALORE: Worldwide external controller-based (ECB) disk storage revenue totaled $15.2 billion in 2006, a 4.1 per cent increase over 2005 revenue of $14.6 billion, with India posting the fastest growth, according to Gartner Inc.

EMC maintained the No. 1 spot worldwide in 2006, as its market share grew to 24.8 per cent in 2006 compared with 23.4 per cent in 2005. IBM overtook Hewlett-Packard for the No. 2 position in 2006 with IBM’s worldwide ECB market share growing to 15.8 per cent, while HP’s market share dropped to 13.1 per cent.

Hitachi/HDS maintained the No. 4 position with a market share of 9.5 per cent. Dell and Network Appliance were No. 5 and 6 with 7.6 and 7.2 per cent of the market, respectively. Sun Microsystems rounded out the top vendors in the No. 7 spot, finishing the year with a 6.1 per cent market share.

APEJ (Asia Pacific excluding Japan) that accounts for 10.3 per cent of global revenues grew an impressive 9.3 per cent in 2006 to total $1.56 billion in value. China and Australia, in this order, continued to be the two biggest markets for ECB storage in APEJ. Together the two country markets accounted for nearly 50 per cent of overall revenues in the region. South Korea marginally gained share in 2006 and accounted for 16.1 per cent of APEJ revenues.

Revenues in India grew close to 23 per cent and accounted for 9.7 per cent share of the region. Taiwan was the only country market in the region that showed a negative year on year drop and fell more than 15 per cent for 5.8 per cent share of APEJ region.

In the APEJ market, IBM jumped two positions and edged past EMC by a sliver margin to occupy the number top position in 2006. Overall revenues for this vendor totaled $361.3 million to account for 23 per cent of overall APEJ revenues.

“The key to IBM’s leadership position has been its strong performance in markets such as China and Australia which together accounted for close to 52 per cent of its yearly revenues”, says Aman Munglani, principal analyst with Gartner’s global storage practice. EMC’s revenue grew an impressive 20 per cent in 2006 and totaled $346.1 million in APEJ last year. EMC rose to the No. 1 position in important markets such as Australia and the rest of Asia Pacific also maintaining its leadership position in South Korea. “EMC severely lagged behind IBM in China but made up for some of the losses by closing the year on a strong note in South Korea”.

IBM leads in India

In 2006, the external controller based storage market in India totaled US$ 152.01 million to account for 9.7 per cent of overall revenues sold in Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ). Within these numbers India further widened its gap to Taiwan to cement its position of being the fourth largest market within the APEJ region. Overall capacity totaled more than 20,000 terabytes and close to 5,000 units were sold in India last year.

IBM overtook EMC to lead the Indian ECB market in 2006. Additionally, the market leader was also the fastest growing vendor in the Indian external storage market and registered a revenue growth of almost 59 per cent on a year on year basis.

EMC and HP closed the year in second and third position and grew 25.1 per cent and 5.6 per cent, respectively. EMC led the market in JAS (July-August-September) but closely trailed market leader IBM in the remaining three quarters. EMC’s revenues totaled $33.1 million for 21.8 per cent share. Although, HP’s revenue share declined more than 2 points, the vendor continued to lead the market both in terms of units and terabytes shipped. HP with 23.6 per cent share of capacity sold close to 5,000 terabytes in the Indian market last year. Proportionate values for HP in totaled $27.1 million in 2006.

“The year 2005 witnessed significant traction for the storage industry in India”, says Munglani. “In 2006, India continued to hold on to its forte of being one of the fastest growing storage markets in the world in terms of units, value and in terabytes. Global storage vendors have made significant investments in the Indian market and many vendors have set up their global R&D initiatives in India. The market in itself has started witnessing wider acceptance as vendors are no longer confined to a few select verticals to usher in business.”

External controller-based (ECB) disk storage revenue in India totaled $44.7 million in the last quarter of calendar year 2006, an impressive 32.7 percent increase over the same period in 2005. As a result, India emerged to be the fastest growing storage market in Asia Pacific excluding Japan. Moreover, the share of India as a percentage of APEJ ECB revenues also increased to 9.7% in OND 2006.

It was a quarter of significant gains for the leading three players. Market leader in Q4, IBM was the fastest growing vendor both in sequential and on year on year terms and grew 112.3 per cent over OND (October-November-December) 2005 and 32.1 per cent over corresponding figures in JAS (July-August-September) 2006.

EMC closely followed IBM in second place and accounted for 23.8 per cent share of ECB revenues in Q4 2006 with $10.6 million in revenues. HP’s revenues totaled $8.3 million for 18.6 per cent share of the market last quarter.

© CyberMedia News

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