Worldwide external controller-based (ECB) disk storage vendor revenue increased 3.6% to $5.3bn in the third quarter (Q3) of 2012, compared to $5.1bn for the same period last year, according to Gartner.
According to the analyst company, Q3 saw the twelfth consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth.
Gartner research vice president Roger Cox said: "Reflecting the weak global macro economy, revenue growth in the third quarter of 2012 was the lowest annual growth rate over the past seven quarters, down 3.1 percentage points and 4.4 percentage points respectively from the second quarter 2012 and first quarter 2012 growth rates."
The network-attached storage (NAS) segment increased 10.9% in Q3, while the block-access segment composed of storage area network (SAN) and direct-attached storage (DAS) grew only 1.6%.
The block-access SAN/DAS market segment represented 76.2% of the total ECB disk storage market in the quarter, while the NAS segment represented 23.1%.
The report found that four companies, Hitachi/Hitachi Data Systems, Fujitsu, EMC and NetApp increased their revenue in the quarter, as IBM, HP, Dell, Oracle and other firms reported a decline in revenue.
EMC’s market share in the worldwide ECB disk storage vendor increased 33.6% with revenue of $1.79bn, compared to $1.65bn for the same period 2011.
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Hitachi/Hitachi Data Systems revenue increased to $563.4m in the quarter, NetApp’s revenue rose to $574m while Fujitsu’s revenue grew to $129.6m.
IBM’s and Oracle’s revenue declined to $632.6m and $74.1m respectively while HP’s and Dell’s revenue decreased to $478m and $384.9m respectively.
