Global personal and entry-level storage (PELS) market has grown 73.4% during the first quarter of 2013 with shipment reaching 20.2 million units, according to a report from IDC.
IDC’s Worldwide Personal and Entry Level Storage Tracker revealed that shipment value grew 54.1% during the quarter to $1.8bn, representing a second consecutive quarter of year-over-year rise in global shipment value.
IDC Storage Systems senior research analyst Liz Conner said the first quarter of 2013 brought strong shipment and revenue growth as well as continued recovery to the personal and entry-level storage market.
"A year after the PELS market saw record declines due to the Thailand floods and resulting hard disk drive (HDD) shortage, the PELS market has recovered back to pre-flood levels," Conner said.
"Continued end user data growth, increased awareness on the need for data storage/back-up, declining average selling prices, and evolving vendor product offerings have all attributed to the recovery in the PELS market."
During Q1, HDD vendors increased their share in PELS units shipped, captured 76.1% market share, while the entry-level storage market, which is dominated by the mainstream non-HDD vendors, captured 70.8% market share.
The entry-level storage market reported 1.2% rise in unit shipments year over year, while the personal storage market also reported growth in dual-bay products, in which unit shipments rose by 43.6%.
According to the report, shipments of single bay personal storage devices represented 96.8% of the personal storage units shipped during Q1.
Both 3.5" and 2.5" form factor reported 56.0% and 79.7% rise in shipments, while the end users were reportedly continuing to migrate to higher capacity points to meet their storage requirements.
IDC reports that USB continues to highly deployed device for the PELS market, with 76.4% rise in units shipped year over year, while Ethernet also posted 68.8% rise in shipments.
