Worldwide external controller-based (ECB) disk storage revenue totaled $15.2 billion in 2006, a 4.1 percent increase over 2005 revenue of $14.6 billion, with India posting the fastest growth according to Gartner, Inc.

EMC maintained the No. 1 spot worldwide in 2006, as its market share grew to 24.8 percent in 2006 compared with 23.4 percent in 2005. IBM overtook Hewlett-Packard for the No. 2 position in 2006 with IBM’s worldwide ECB market share growing to 15.8 percent, while HP’s market share dropped to 13.1 percent. Hitachi/HDS maintained the No. 4 position with a market share of 9.5 percent. Dell and Network Appliance were No. 5 and 6 with 7.6 and 7.2 percent of the market, respectively. Sun Microsystems rounded out the top vendors in the No. 7 spot, finishing the year with a 6.1 percent market share.

APEJ (Asia Pacific excluding Japan) that accounts for 10.3% of global revenues grew an impressive 9.3% in 2006 to total $1.56 billion in value. China and Australia in this order continued to be the two biggest markets for ECB storage in APEJ. Together the two country markets accounted for nearly 50% of overall revenues in the region. South Korea marginally gained share in 2006 and accounted for 16.1% of APEJ revenues. Revenues in India grew close to 23% and accounted for 9.7% share of the region. Taiwan was the only country market in the region that showed a negative year on year drop and fell more than 15% for 5.8% share of APEJ region.

In the APEJ market, IBM jumped two positions and edged past EMC by a sliver margin to occupy the number 1 position in 2006. Overall revenues for this vendor totaled $361.3 million to account for 23% of overall APEJ revenues. “The key to IBM’s leadership position has been its strong performance in markets such as China and Australia which together accounted for close to 52% of its yearly revenues”, says Aman Munglani, Principal Analyst with Gartner’s global storage practice. EMC’s revenue grew an impressive 20% in 2006 and totaled $346.1 million in APEJ last year. EMC rose to the No. 1 position in important markets such as Australia and the rest of Asia Pacific also maintaining its leadership position in South Korea. “EMC severely lagged behind IBM in China but made up for some of the losses by closing the year on a strong note in South Korea”.

In 2006, the external controller based storage market in India totaled US$ 152.01 million to account for 9.7 percent of overall revenues sold in Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ). Within these numbers India further widened its gap to Taiwan to cement its position of being the fourth largest market within the APEJ region. Overall capacity totaled more than 20,000 terabytes and close to 5,000 units were sold in India last year.  

Sourced From: Text 100 Public Relations Consultancy