Bulgaria external storage market set for strong growth – IDC
Bulgaria’s total storage hardware market grew 6.8 per cent in 2014, reaching $14.1 million in vendor revenue, as capacity increased by 50 per cent to 28 petabyte and was poised to continue growing, technology market analysis firm IDC said on May 21.
External storage capacity increased by 87 per cent and the revenue of external storage arrays grew by 17.9 per cent to $9.6 million, as internal storage declined. The positive results, which were one of the highest in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) region, could be attributed to the solid performance of both mid-range and high-end storage classes in the country, IDC said.
HP, EMC and Huawei were the top three bestselling vendors mainly responsible for the soaring Bulgarian external storage systems market. HP was primarily successful with both its high-end and mid-range 3PAR models, as well as entry-level solutions. Huawei capitalised on its penetration in the telecom sector and significantly grew its market share, while EMC kept its share only in the mid-range class, according to IDC.
“Political stability and stable macroeconomic indicators in the last year were favorable for the higher storage demand and unfolding of market and technology trends valid for rest of the CEE region and globally – the rise of flash, cloud, software-defined storage, convergence, Internet of Things, and hardware commoditisation,” the company said.
The adoption of flash-optimized storage in datacenters started making an impact in the CEE region in 2014 with all vendors already having them as part of their portfolio. In the last quarter, even the more niche all-flash arrays (AFA) recorded skyrocketing value growth in CEE. Bulgaria followed suit and first AFA installations in the country already captured two per cent of total annual external storage revenue in 2014.
“Worsening of Greece economic crisis and EU-Russia relations could threaten Bulgarian economy and hence IT and storage markets, however, the EU funds [allocated under the next budgeting period for] 2014-2020 and planned e-government programmes are likely to offset the risks,” said Marina Kostova, senior storage systems analyst with IDC CEMA. “We expect the market to develop at high single-digit growth rate in short to medium term.”
(Photo: Jakub Krechowicz/sxc.hu)