NetApp shoots past IBM in ECB disk storage market

Market records 14th consecutive quarter of growth, according to Gartner

NetApp raced ahead of IBM to claim second place in the external controller-based (ECB) disk storage market in this year's first quarter, according to figures from Gartner.

For Q1, NetApp's revenue rose by 3.4 per cent annually to $714.8m (£458m), while IBM's slid 2.7 per year on year to $584.2m. In the preceding quarter, IBM had a good lead over its nearest rival, posting revenue of $1bn compared with NetApp's figure for the same period of $780m.

EMC remained streets ahead of the wrangling pair, upping its revenue annually by 2.2 per cent to $1.8bn, claiming 33 per cent market share – more than double second-place NetApp's figure of 13.1 per cent (despite the figure slowly creeping up from 12.7 per cent a year ago).

Gartner put NetApp's triumph over IBM down to the increased traction it has enjoyed with its Data Ontap product, and claimed the latter lost ground due to its year-on-year product revenue gains being insufficient to offset the annual decline in products being replaced – a similar problem endured by HP and Dell, it added.

HP's revenue for Q1 slumped five per cent to $466.9m, while Dell's dropped a similar amount – 5.4 per cent – to $407.9m. The pair took market share of nine per cent and 7.9 per cent respectively.

Oracle was another vendor to experience a dip in revenue during Q1, with its sales figure dropping 23.2 per cent to $54m, claiming just one per cent in market share.

Fujitsu managed a 30.3 per cent year-on-year revenue hike in Q1, taking its sales figure to $187m, while fourth-place HDS grew more modestly – 1.9 per cent – posting revenue of $528m.

The market as a whole crept up annually by 0.6 per cent. Despite this marking growth for the 14th consecutive quarter in a row, Roger Cox, Gartner's research vice president, said strong headwinds of a morose global economy meant Q1 was actually the slowest annual growth rate since 2009's final quarter.

The EMEA region grew 1.7 per cent annually, the same as the Asia-Pacific region. The North American region only managed a 0.2 per cent year-on-year rise in Q1, with the main growth coming from the Latin American and Japanese markets, which grew 23.3 per cent and 5.7 per cent respectively.