Disc storage market grows for twelfth consecutive quarter

HDS wins and Oracle loses in Q3, according to Gartner numbers

The worldwide storage market has grown 3.6 per cent year on year in 2012's third quarter, according to Gartner, which claims that it is the twelfth quarter in a row that it has experienced growth.

The external controller-based (ECB) disc storage market saw revenues total $5.3bn (£3.3bn) in Q3, up from $5.1bn in the corresponding period last year.

Hitachi Data Systems posted the highest growth, with sales up 18.1 per cent to $563.4m in Q3.

EMC grew its market share to 33.6 per cent, with revenues totalling $1.8bn, an 8.2 per cent increase from last year's Q3.

NetApp closed the gap on IBM in the battle for second place in the market share stakes. IBM's share of the market shrank one percentage point to 11.9 per cent while NetApp's share grew marginally to 10.8 per cent, up from 10.7 per cent year on year.

IBM's revenues slumped by five per cent to $632.6m, while third-largest storage vendor NetApp's grew four per cent to $574m.

Gartner said that IBM, along with Dell, HP and Oracle face "difficulties beyond global macroeconomic issues". The analyst firm claimed that Dell's revenue drop of four per cent to $384.9m was partly down to its lack of significant presence in the high-growth NAS market.

HP experienced a 72 per cent year-on-year increase in its 3PAR StoreServ range's revenue, but Gartner claimed success in this area was not enough to offset the drag of other areas of its business and the "turmoil surrounding [its] board of directors".

Overall, HP's revenue slumped by 10.9 per cent to $478m, while its market share slid by 1.4 percentage points.

Oracle's revenue in Q3 dropped by 17.4 per cent to $74.1m, which Gartner claims has led users to become "sceptical of [its] long-range commitment to its ECB disc storage business".