Disk storage growth hampered by price pressure

But latest IDC western Europe figures reveal the UK saw a 'real-term' expansion for the second quarter of 2012

The market for enterprise-grade external disk storage systems (EDSS) in western Europe shrank in the second quarter as exchange rates and pricing pressure took their toll, number cruncher IDC has revealed.

According to its latest figures, EDSS factory revenue hit $1.2bn (£748m) in Q2, a 0.3 per cent drop on the same period the previous year.

Donna Taylor, research director for IDC's European Storage Group, said: "The economic environment remained challenging for the quarter, putting stress on markets and suppressing overall growth.

"Out of the major markets, Italy was the worst impacted by budget cuts, while France cooled off a bit after several quarters of strong rallying. On the bright side, Germany and the UK, alongside with most of the western European markets, expanded in real terms for the quarter."

The analyst revealed that hard disk drive pricing and supply substantially improved, helping new capacity shipments to accelerate, while still below historical averages.

Newly deployed enterprise disk storage systems capacity in western Europe grew by nearly 15 per cent in the quarter over last year, exceeding the one exabyte barrier.

In terms of market leaders, EMC edged up its share of the high-end segment, clinging on to the top spot, with 1.9 per cent growth. Second-placed NetApp saw a 4.6 per cent drop in revenue compared with the previous year and third-placed HP saw a two per cent increase in revenue for Q2.