The purpose-built backup appliance (PBBA) market saw a 9.7% rise during the fourth quarter of 2012 to $859.5m compared to the corresponding quarter in 2011, according a new report from IDC.

IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Purpose-Built Backup Appliance Tracker revealed that the overall PBBA open systems market generated $567.5m in revenues, a 16.4% rise compared to the quarter in the earlier year.

During the quarter, the overall global PBBA capacity shipments reached 455,254 terabytes, up 42.9% year over year.

IDC Data Protection and Recovery research director Robert Amatruda said the global BBA market resumed robust growth in the fourth quarter. "Overall, the worldwide PBBA market experienced strong growth in revenue, capacity, and shipments," Amatruda said. "Long-term, we expect the worldwide PBBA will continue to outpace the overall data protection and recovery software and hardware market as customers continue to embrace turnkey systems to alleviate their backup and recovery challenges."

During the quarter, EMC led the overall PBBA market by capturing 66.5% revenue share, followed by Symantec and IBM, which captured 11.8% and 8.4% market share respectively.

Additionally, Symantec reported strong year-over-year rise in the PBBA market during 4Q while HP and IBM reported a drop in their revenues.