Research from International Data Corporation (IDC) shows that annual shipment units for the personal and entry-level storage (PELS) market in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) were down 1,1% year-over-year, with around 29-million units shipped in 2014.
This is according to the latest IDC Worldwide Personal and Entry-Level Storage Tracker.
Shipment values were also down 2% from a year ago, to $2,3-million.
In the fourth quarter 2014, EMEA unit shipment declined 3,9% to 7,8-million units, showing the same pattern as the year as a whole, while 4Q14 shipment values were down 5,5% to $611,8-million.
In the personal storage segment, hard disk drive (HDD) vendors continued to gain market share and dominate the market. Although there are threats of technologies such as public cloud and online streaming to the market, the bandwidth and security levels are still a major concern in Europe, which makes personal storage devices the main source for consumers to store and manage their data.
“The entry level segment, on the other hand, used to be dominated by mainstream non-HDD vendors. In 2014, however, mainstream non-HDD vendors lost 21,4% unit share to HDD vendors. The reduction in entry-level prices has stimulated SMBs and home offices to acquire products that could offer the relevant enterprise features they require as well as satisfy their storage needs,” says Jimena Sisa senior research analyst, European Storage Research.
