International Data Corporation (IDC) has attributed currency depreciation and political instability in several parts of Africa to be the main causes for the downturn in the 2015 enterprise hardware market in Africa.
IDC quarterly server and disk storage systems tracker reveals that key markets in Africa like South Africa and Nigeria suffered a 5% year-on-year downturn in value in 2015.
According to IDC enterprise hardware revenue in Middle East and Africa (MEA )totaled $2.31 billion in 2015, describing the year as transitionary in nature with organizations gradually moving towards convergence and data center usage.
According to the research company, MEA enterprise hardware market, which comprises servers and external storage, has remained flat in 2015 when compared to the annual revenues seen in the previous year.
While expecting stability to return this year, IDC forecast a year-on-year growth of 3% for the continent as a whole, stating that Egypt has shown good signs of recovery with year-on-year growth in enterprise hardware spending of 25%.
In line with this trend, the region is seeing increasing adoption of new technologies like converged systems, while procurement of infrastructure for cloud environments is also on the rise.
IDC expects the high-end storage market to witness considerable uptake in the region during 2016, primarily bolstered by projects within the government, telecommunications, and oil and gas sectors.
Swapna Subramani, Research Manager for Enterprise Infrastructure at IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey, said “the availability of alternative modes of storage such as flash, internal storage, converged systems, and cloud storage are the key driving factors for the ongoing shift we are seeing within the MEA storage market.”
Also, Victoria Mendes, Senior Research Analyst for enterprise infrastructure at IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey, said “this trend has resulted in an increase in the market’s value despite the decline in server shipments.”
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