Storage revenues plummet
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Sales of disk systems fell off a cliff during the first quarter of 2009
Revenue from standalone disk systems fell 11.1% over the three months to $3.8 billion, compared with the same period in 2008, according to analyst group Gartner.
There was one obvious cause – IT budget cuts: “The year-over-year double-digit decline primarily resulted from the economic downturn and longer sales cycles,” says Donna Taylor at Gartner. But some of the main players suffered more than others.
With disk storage revenues of $879.7 million, EMC continued to lead the pack with a 23.2% share of the revenue pie, down from 24.6% a year earlier. Despite that decline, it was well ahead of IBM, Hitachi/HDS, HP and Dell whose respective market shares hovered around the 9% to 11% mark.
In the top five, HP was the biggest loser. Its year-on-year sales tumbled 24% to $372.1 million, enabling Hitachi/HDS to overtake it and grab the number three slot, increasing its market share from 10.2% to 10.6%.
Dell also grew its slice of the market from 9.0% to 9.2%, with its revenues falling the least of the top companies (down 9.1%)
Also holding relatively steady was NetApp, where market share grew from 8.4% to 8.5% on revenues down 10.2% to $324.0 million.
And one of the reasons that Sun Microsystems was placed on the auction block became clear in its numbers: the company’s disk system sales collapsed by 30.4% from $216.0 million to $150.4 million. That will add further fuel to speculation that Sun’s new owner, Oracle, may sell the ailing storage business it has inherited.
