Worldwide disk storage systems market reported a 6.8% rise in revenues to just under $8bn in the first quarter of 2012 (1Q12), according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).
The figures revealed that the total disk storage systems capacity shipment were 6,037 petabytes, a 20.8% rise while global external disk storage systems factory revenues saw year-over-year growth of 7.1% to just under $6bn.
IDC Storage Systems senior research analyst Liz Conner said despite concerns surrounding the hard disk drive shortage, the external disk storage systems market posted a strong first quarter with revenues up a solid 7.1% year over year.
"Entry level systems (ASV of less than $25,000) were hit hardest owing to their reliance on SATA and near-line SAS drives, which experienced price increases due to the Thailand floods," he added.
However, strong overall growth in emerging regions and the slowdown in price per gigabyte ($/GB) erosion helped the market post year-over-year growth."
IDC Storage Systems senior research analyst Amita Potnis said the high-end storage segment (ASP $250,000+) remained flat year over year and declined 13.0% sequentially in the first quarter of 2012.
"The high-end segment grew significantly in 2010 and 2011 owing to the loosened storage budgets after the economic crisis of 2009," Amita added.
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"IDC believes that the softened growth in the high-end segment this quarter is reflective of what will be a long-term trend."
EMC was the top player in the external disk storage systems market with 29% revenue share in the first quarter, followed by NetApp in second with 14.1%, IBM in third with 11.4% and HP and Hitachi in a tie for fourth with 10.2% and 9.4% market shares, respectively.
In the total worldwide disk storage systems market, EMC finished in the top position followed by HP with market shares of 21.7% and 18.2% respectively.
The total open networked disk storage market grew 8.5% year over year to $5.1bn in revenues, where EMC continued the lead with 32.2% revenue share, followed by NetApp with 16.4%.
In the Open SAN market, which was up by 13.0%, EMC was on top with 28.3% revenue share, IBM in second and HP in third with 13.8% and 12.3% shares, respectively.
The NAS market was down by 1.9% year over year, led by EMC with 42.6% revenue share and followed by NetApp with 36.4% share.
In the iSCSI SAN market, posting 17.6% revenue growth, Dell led the market with 33.0% share, followed by EMC in second and NetApp in third with 18.9% and 13.7% market shares, respectively.
