Gartner: External Controller-Based Disk Storage Market Fell 11.1% in Q1

STAMFORD, Conn., June 4, 2009 -- Worldwide external controller-based (ECB) disk storage revenue totaled $3.8 billion in the first quarter of 2009, an 11.1 percent decline from the same period in 2008, according to Gartner, Inc.

"The year-over-year double-digit decline of 11.1 percent primarily resulted from the economic downturn and longer sales cycles," said Donna Taylor, principal research analyst for Gartner's global Storage Quarterly Statistics program.

There were no market share leadership changes compared with the first quarter of last year. EMC maintained its No.1 position with 23.2 percent revenue market share (see Table 1). IBM placed second with 11.1 percent, and HP came in third with 9.8 percent. Hitachi/Hitachi Data Systems placed fourth with 10.6 percent, followed by Dell with 9.2 percent. NetApp and Sun Microsystems placed sixth and seventh, respectively, with 8.5 percent and 4 percent market share.

Note1 EMC revenue excludes OEM revenue from Dell and Fujitsu Siemens.

Note2 Hitachi/Hitachi Data Systems revenue excludes OEM revenue from HP and Sun Microsystems.Note 3 Others revenue in 1Q09 includes new vendor coverage not available in 1Q08, as well as enhanced estimates of the "white box" market.

Source: Gartner (June 2009)

* Please note that beginning in 4Q08, Gartner added new vendor coverage in the Others category, as well as enhanced "white box" estimates. Therefore, revenue estimates for the Others category will tend to distort market shares among all categories until FY09, when an apples-to-apples comparison will be possible. As a result, Gartner suggests that readers focus instead on the individual "named" vendors' year-over-year revenue % change.

Gartner ECB disk storage reports reflect hardware only revenue, as well as hardware revenue associated with financial leases and managed services. Optional storage software revenue and storage area network infrastructure components are excluded.