Gartner Predicts Market Growth

STAMFORD, Conn. -- Worldwide external controller-based (ECB) disk storage revenue totaled $3.8 billion in the first quarter of 2007, a 4.8 percent increase over the same period in 2006, according to Gartner, Inc.

Network Appliance showed the strongest growth year-over-year among the top-tier vendors, with 19.3 percent revenue growth for the quarter (see Table 1). EMC maintained the No. 1 spot overall, finishing the quarter at 24.5 percent market share. IBM was in second place with 13.2 percent of the market followed closely by Hewlett-Packard with 12.8 percent. Hitachi/HDS was in the No. 4 position with a market share of 9.7 percent. Network Appliance took over the No. 5 spot from Dell by the narrowest of margins, each with 8.4 percent of the market. Sun Microsystems rounded out the top vendors in the No. 7 spot with 5.1 percent market share. Smaller vendors increased their share of the market by 11.4 percent year-over-year, finishing the quarter with 17.9 percent.

The Asia Pacific region grew its revenue by 27.7 percent year over year. Vendors’ continued focus on developing and strengthening their sales and distribution channels in the region has contributed to this strong showing,” said Donna Taylor, principal analyst for Gartner’s global Storage Quarterly Statistics program.

Gartner Inc.