Worldwide storage software market revenue in the fourth quarter of 2010 grew by 10.6% year on year to $3.4bn, and marks the fifth consecutive quarter of year-on-year growth, according to a report by International Data Corporation (IDC).
The Worldwide Storage Software QView report revealed that for the full year 2010 sales of storage software increased 10.3% to $12.7bn, which is a contrast to the 3.2% contraction the market experienced in 2009.
The storage infrastructure market experienced the highest calendar year growth of 23.6%, which took the functional market to $1.2bn in total sales.
Data protection and recovery remained the largest functional market by a considerable margin with sales in this market segment crossing $4.4bn for the year, which was an increase of 11.2%.
According to IDC, EMC topped vendors list with 25.4% market share and revenues of $866.1m, Symantec and IBM stood at second and third with market share of 16% and 13%, respectively.
NetApp registered market share of 9.2% and revenues of $311.7m, followed by Hitachi with 4.4% market share and revenues of $148.4m during the fourth quarter of 2010.
IDC storage software program research director Eric Sheppard said the storage software market is in the midst of a sustained recovery, which is partly driven by new product innovations, and partly by a strong desire to address inefficiencies related to storing, protecting, and managing corporate data.
"A considerable increase in storage software designed to enable automated storage tiering, coupled with a continued market trend of addressing aging, inefficient storage deployments were two important drivers of market growth during the quarter," Sheppard said.
