Beancounters at IDC have added up the numbers for the European, the Middle East and Africa markets and think that thecapacity shipped in the quarter dropped 3.5 per cent, indicating a move away from external storage to internal storage in the region.
For the first quarter, the traditional hard disk array (HDD) segment in EMEA declined for yet another quarter, falling 23 per cent in user value.
The flash market, on the other hand, recorded another bumper quarter, with all-flash systems growing 96 per cent annually and hybrid flash arrays growing at a more modest 4 per cent on year.
Flash arrays recorded triple-digit growth in capacity this quarter, accounting for nearly 60 per cent of total shipments.
Silvia Cosso, senior research analyst, European Storage Research, IDC
"Flash is the only vivid note in yet another lackluster quarter characterized by unstable emerging markets and a negative seasonality effect. The additional slowdown is due to the portfolio transition by major vendors, but also due to investments put on hold as they wait to see how the large acquisitions announced last year will materialize. On a positive note, the exchange rate effect was milder than in the previous quarters."
The Western European external storage market continued its decline for another quarter, falling 4 per cent on year in the first quarter, due to the continuing downward trend in the traditional storage segment. Western Europe's storage revenues exceeded US$1.2 billion and capacity shipped dropped 11%.
Archana Venkatraman, senior analyst, European Storage Research, IDC said:
"External storage continued to decline in 2016 in Western Europe as traditional storage arrays struggle to attract investment. The double-digit drop in capacity in the first quarter demonstrates how mature Western European organisations are moving to newer, more intuitive storage technologies such as internal or server-based storage to meet their capacity requirements. In the next few quarters we expect to see continued growth in flash storage and a push to internal storage as organizations take an integrated approach to their infrastructure to take it closer to application needs."
