EMC, HP Race for External Disk Storage Market Lead

Data storage hardware and software maker EMC maintains a narrow overall lead in the worldwide external disk storage systems market, but Hewlett-Packard has caught up and the two are almost tied for No. 1 in market share, according to second-quarter data released Sept. 1 by IDC.

EMC led the world’s top disk storage vendors with $830 million in revenue for the quarter and an even 20 percent of the market, and HP recorded 10.3 percent revenue growth year over year to earn $800 million in the quarter and claim second place—but a statistical tie for No. 1—with 19.3 percent.

IBM maintained the third position with 13.2 percent market share, while Hitachi, Dell, and Sun Microsystems ended the quarter in a statistical tie for fourth with 8.0, 7.8 and 7.1 percent revenue share, respectively. Among the top vendors, HP, Hitachi and Sun each had double-digit year-over-year growth.

HP maintained its leadership in worldwide total disk storage revenue for the 17th consecutive quarter, with 24 percent market share and 9.2 percent revenue growth year over year in the second quarter of 2006.

According to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Tracker, worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues grew 8.5 percent in the second quarter to $4.2 billion for the 13th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth, the Framingham, Mass., market analysis firm reported.

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