Study Forecasts Explosive Growth

HOPKINTON, Mass. -- EMC Corporation, the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, today announced new findings from the groundbreaking EMC-sponsored research from IDC that measures and forecasts the vast amounts and diverse types of digital information created and copied in the world.

The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe: An Updated Forecast of Worldwide Information Growth Through 2011” highlights findings that are newly updated since IDC’s inaugural forecast of the digital universe was published in March 2007. IDC’s new whitepaper offers updated growth projections and new findings expected to impact business and society based on new data and analysis that indicate:

At 281 billion gigabytes (281 exabytes), the digital universe in 2007 was 10% bigger than originally estimated

With a compound annual growth rate of almost 60%, the digital universe is growing faster and is projected to be nearly 1.8 zettabytes (1,800 exabytes) in 2011, a 10-fold increase over the next five years

Your “Digital Shadow” – that is, all the digital information generated about the average person on a daily basis – now surpasses the amount of digital information individuals actively create themselves