NetApp thrives despite shrinking storage market

Storage vendor the only top-five company to grow in Q3 as total disk storage market plummets

NetApp was the only vendor to grow annually in the third quarter of 2013, according to IDC figures, which show the market as a whole shrank by more than five per cent.

In Q3, the global disk storage systems market shrank 5.6 per cent annually in revenue, with all top-four vendors suffering a sales slump over the period.

IDC said the market's poor performance was brought on by factors linked to both emerging technology and the weak economy.

"Despite the revenue contraction in the third quarter, we see strong demand for offerings targeted at heavily virtualised environments, such as integrated infrastructure," said Eric Sheppard, research director of storage at IDC.

"However, this demand has been offset by several factors: reduced spending from the US government, increased use of storage efficiency technologies, increased investment in public cloud capacity, and general price pressures associated with increased competitive environments."

Market leader EMC's total disc storage storage market revenue slid the least in Q3 – dropping 1.3 per cent annually to $1.8bn (£1.1bn) – but HP and IBM's sales slump reached double figures, shrinking 10.2 per cent and 11.2 per cent respectively year on year. Dell's total disk storage revenue fell seven per cent year on year.

Other storage vendors combined saw their revenue in the total disc storage market plummet 6.6 per cent annually, but NetApp managed to grow. The vendor, which ranked fifth in the total disc storage market, saw its revenue climb 5.9 per cent annually, taking its sales figure to $748m and securing it 10 per cent of the market, up from nine per cent in 2012's third quarter.