The external disk storage systems factory revenues increased year over year by 2.4%, totaling $6.9 billion, during the fourth quarter of 2013 (4Q13), according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). For the quarter, the total (internal plus external) disk storage systems market generated $8.8 billion in revenue, representing a 1.3% increase from the prior year's fourth quarter and a sequential increase of 17.2% compared to the seasonally lower 3Q13. Total disk storage systems capacity shipped surpassed 10.2 exabytes, growing 26.2% year over year,IDC's study found.

"The disk storage systems market was able to break free of recent headwinds due to traditional year-end budget flushes, improved economic sentiment, and a strong desire to address long-standing storage infrastructure inefficiencies," said Eric Sheppard, Research Director, IDC Storage. "Industry stakeholders able to capitalize the most on this demand were often those with recent product refreshes and strong go-to-market initiatives targeted at integrated infrastructure and storage optimization."

EMC experienced the greatest year-over-year share gains during the quarter, improving its share in the external disk storage systems market from 30.7% (4Q12) to 32.9% of total 4Q13 revenue. IBM was the second largest supplier in the market with 13.0% share of external revenue followed by NetApp which accounted for 11.5%. HP and Hitachi rounded out the top 5 vendors with 9.6% and 8.1% revenue shares respectively during the quarter.

Top 5 Vendors, Worldwide External Disk Storage Systems Market, Fourth Quarter of 2013 (Revenues are in Millions)