West is best for European storage market

UK fuels strong performance for western Europe but almost all central and eastern countries' markets shrink

Strong performance in the UK and Germany helped drive strong Q3 growth in the western European storage market, according to IDC, which pointed to poor performance throughout the rest of EMEA.

Across the whole of EMEA, revenue in the external disk storage systems market only grew 1.7 per cent annually to $1.68bn (£1.03bn), but the modest growth spurt masks a widely differing story between the eastern and western sides of the region.

In western Europe in Q3, shipments jumped 6.4 per cent annually, mainly driven by strong performance in the UK and Germany. The duo's boom was even enough to offset the performance of the third-largest western European storage market France, which suffered declining shipments.

While the west boomed, the central and eastern [Europe], Middle East and Africa (CEMA) region suffered a poor Q3, according to IDC. Although the analyst did not disclose its shipment data, it said the region's value shrank for the first time in nearly four years after recording a nine per cent annual sales slump to just $457.41m.

IDC put the region's poor performance down to central and eastern European countries and said that, across that region, only the Polish and Slovakian storage markets grew in Q3.

When looking at EMEA on the whole, all the top five vendors – EMC, HP, NetApp, IBM and Dell – enjoyed single-digit growth in the external disk storage market.

EMC, HP and IBM were successful in western Europe and the Middle East and Africa region, while Dell performed well in the central and eastern European region, IDC said.

"The overall market gained traction from the mid-range storage class, which registered double-digit growth year on year, while the high-end band was lacklustre, mainly due to still-cautious purchasing behaviour and elongated sales cycles," said Silvia Cosso, storage systems analyst for western Europe at IDC.