Global shipments of personal and entry-level storage systems rose 13.6% during 2013 to 75.2 million units, bringing the annual shipment value to $6.7bn, up 6.2%, a new IDC report revealed.
According to the latest Worldwide Personal and Entry Level Storage Tracker, unit shipments, however, dropped 4.2% during the fourth quarter (4Q13) to 20.4 million units while shipment values also declined10.3% to $1.8bn.
IDC Storage Systems research manager Liz Conner said that the personal and entry-level storage market finished 2013 strong even with the difficult comparison with a strong second half from a year ago.
"In 2012, the fourth quarter showed exceptionally strong growth as the PELS market was in full recovery mode after the Thailand floods, which led to hard disk drive (HDD) shortages," Conner said.
"Despite the resulting slight decline in 4Q13, the PELS market was able post year-over-year growth for all of 2013.
"This continued annual growth is driven by on-going consumer education, better marketing by vendors, and progressing product evolution to address items such as higher capacity, faster transfer speeds, and mobile device integration."
Vendors of hard disk drives (HDD) boosted their share in PELS units shipped year over year and captured 76.9% market share, while the entry-level storage market remained dominated by the mainstream non-HDD vendors with 60.6% unit shipment market share.
The unit shipments of entry-level storage devices rose 6.8%year over year, while unit shipments for the higher bay remained flat with 0.7% year-over-year growth.
