India’s external storage market witnessed a growth of 12.7% year-over-year (by vendor revenue) and stood at $84.1 million in the first quarter of 2018, according to IDC (www.idc.com).

External storage market growth was mainly driven by increased spending from banking organizations, according to the research group. Major industry verticals such as banking, professional services, manufacturing, Telecommunications and government together contributed to more than 80% of overall external storage market in quarter one 2018.

“Organizations are witnessing significant data growth and there are challenges for getting IT budgets for traditional hardware. Organizations are considering technologies to help data optimization and consolidation as ways to overcome this difficulty.” says Dileep Nadimpalli, research nanager, Enterprise Infrastructure, IDC India.

All flash arrays segment saw a significant growth of 87.4% year-over-year in quarter one 2018 contributing to 30.9% of the overall external storage market. Adoption of All flash arrays (AFA) offers better technical advance and performance at an affordable price which is benefiting customer due to competitive vendor environment. IDC says organizations are actively considering flash options and are willing to pay the additional price premium to avail best in class performance.

Mid-range storage segment witnessed a significant growth year-over-year due to large banking and professional services deployments while entry-level storage segment saw a decline in the first quarter of 2018. Midrange external storage segment continued to lead the market with more than 58% market share in the quarter. 

“Budgetary pressures and dynamic business priorities are pushing organizations to consider new deployment models to procure infrastructure. To address these changing customer requirements, OEMs should focus on innovative pricing models to drive new and incremental business. With unabated data growth, highly available data and instant information delivery is what matter to business,” says Ranganath Sadasiva, director, Enterprise Solution, IDC India.