Local Tech Wire

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – EMC and NetApp both grew sales of external storage devices at 40 percent or higher over the past year, and IBM is the big loser in market share, according to new data released Friday by analyst firm IDC.

All three companies have major campuses and operations in the Triangle.

As global data generation continues to grow, so is demand for devices on which to save that information.

EMC (NYSE: EMC) sold nearly $1.3 billion in external disk storage systems (in the second quarter, a 40.6 percent jump over the same quarter a year ago.

The market leader already, EMC expanded its share to 25.7 percent from 22 percent.

NetApp (Nasdaq: NTAP), meanwhile, grew sales to $571 million, up 55.3 percent from a year ago.

As a result, IDC says NetApp’s market share improved to 11.4 percent from 8.8 percent.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) also grew sales, not just as strongly. Big Blue revenues in the disk space grew 11 percent to $680 million.

However, IBM’s market share fell to 13.6 percent from 14.7 percent.

HP (NYSE: HPQ) sales grew 21 percent to $567 million. Its market share remained 11.3 percent, good for fourth place.

At Dell (Nasdaq: DELL), meanwhile, revenues grew 17 percent to $472 million, but its market share slipped to 9.4 percent from 9.7 percent to remain fifth.

"The first half of 2010 showed continued signs of economic recovery in the disk storage systems market," said Liz Conner, a senior research analyst for Storage Systems at IDC. "The external disk storage systems market grew 18.6 percent from the first half of 2009 in terms of factory revenue and 3.0 percent from the second half of 2009. Although the first half of 2009 was extremely weak due to the economic crisis, the gain from a relatively strong second half of 2009 shows continued customer investment and importance placed in the storage systems market."

Overall disk storage sales up

Total disk storage sales also grew, IDC said, with HP and EMC basically sharing the top stop for market share at 19.3 percent and 19 percent respectively. Total sales climbed 20 percent to $6.8 billion.

Overall HP storage revenues climbed 33 percent to $1.3 billion, and its market share grew to 19.3 percent from 17.4 percent.

EMC sales improved 41 percent to just under $1.3 billion, and its share surged to 19 percent from 16.3 percent.

IBM, meanwhile, sales climbed at a slower rate, 9.3 percent, to just over $1 billion. As a result its share fell to 15.8 percent from 17.5 percent.

Dell ranks fourth at 12.3 percent share and $832 million in revenues as sales climbed 23 percent.

NetApp is fifth at 8.4 percent share, up from 6.5 percent, as sales jumped 55 percent to $571 million.

For more details from IDC,

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