Digital Storage Technologies in a State of Flux, as Technology Advancements Trigger Massive Disruption, Unrest & Rebalancing

Huge erosions in shipments of 1^st generation optical disc storage devices and hard disk drive (HDDs) which make up 59% of the market’s technology mix is expected to drag down the global sales of Digital Storage Devices to reach 3.7 billion units by 2024. By the end of the forecast period, solid state drive (SSDs) and flash drive based storage devices will take over the market supported by explosive growth in digital data generation and the ever-present demand for secure, faster and high capacity storage solutions suitable for rapidly growing data-driven applications.

Data storage devices are hardware components that are utilized for storage, porting and extraction of data objects and files. As a core component of a computing device, data storage device functions as a storage medium that can be attached internally or externally to a server or a computer. Data storage devices are available in varied form factors including hard disk drives (HDD), Solid State Drives (SSD), optical disk drives, USB flash drives and memory cards. Digital storage devices is a declining market characterized by technology shifts and changing standards which are triggering massive obsolescence, replacement and substitution by evolving technologies. The market also faces the threat posed by cloud storage technologies.  

Among the various digital storage devices, sales of HDDs will continue to fall due to the declining PC sales, and the supply constraints being witnessed in the memory chips market. Despite innovations in magnetic heads and disks technology which is leading to significant improvements in HDD recording, vendors will continue to confront challenges in sustaining sales of conventional rotating disk types of drives over the coming years. Substitution by SSDs whose prices are witnessing a continuous decline will continue over the medium to long-term. On the other hand, the SSD market will continue to grow, supported by factors such as increasing penetration of high-end cloud computing devices, growing adoption of SSDs in datacenters, increasing Internet penetration, digitization of routine activities, growing use of social media, the explosive growth in media content, and the rapid growth of online commerce market. The increasing penetration of smartphones and tablets is leading to large volumes of digital data being generated by consumers, whereby the average storage capacity per household is expected to witness a considerable increase over the coming years. This in turn will drive demand for SSDs for efficient storage of content. Other factors spurring demand for SSDs are rapidly falling prices, significant improvements in performance due to NVMe (non-volatile memory express) formation, and substantial increase in cloud customers. Meanwhile, the USB flash drives market is expected to record healthy growth, due to the advent of USB 3.0 specification for high-speed transfer of files.

As stated by the new market research report on Digital Storage Devices, Europe represents the largest regional market, worldwide. While the HDDs market continues to decline due to reducing consumer demand for the external drives, potential opportunities for growth in the European digital storage devices market are emerging from the expanding SSD market. The higher reliability and better performance efficiency offered by SSDs are leading to their increased adoption in the European data center market. Asia-Pacific is poised to register a CAGR of -1.5% over the analysis period. As with rest of the regions, sales of HDDs are on a steady decline in the region, with potential growth emerging from the sustained demand for SSDs and flash drives. The increasing demand for faster and higher storage capacity smartphones in Asia-Pacific countries is expected to fuel demand for storage devices and memory chips, among others. The region is witnessing high demand for USB flash drives, due to the positive economic environment, rapidly increasing use of entertainment services, and rapid growth in SMBs in countries such as China and India.

Major players in the market include Intel Corporation, Kingmax Technology Inc., Kingston Technology Corporation, LenovoEMC, Lite-On Storage, Micron Technology Inc., Nexsan Inc., Lexar, PNY Technologies Inc., RITEK Corporation, Samsung Electronics, Seagate Technology plc, SK hynix, Sony Corporation, Toshiba Corporation, Transcend Information Inc., Verbatim Americas LLC, Western Digital Technologies Inc., and SanDisk Corporation, among others.

The research report titled “Digital Storage Devices: A Global Strategic Business Report” announced by Global Industry Analysts Inc., provides a comprehensive review of market trends, issues, drivers, mergers, acquisitions and other strategic industry activities of global companies. The report provides market estimates and projections for all major geographic markets such as the US, Canada, Japan, Europe (France, Germany, Italy, UK, Spain, Russia and Rest of Europe), Asia-Pacific (China, India and Rest of Asia-Pacific), Latin America, Rest of World. The report analyzes the Digital Storage Devices market by the Category/Segment - Hard Disk Drive, Solid State Drive, Optical Disc (Blu-Ray, DVD and CD), Flash Drive (USB Flash Memory Drive and Others).

For enquiries e-mail us at rsd@strategyr.com or info411@strategyr.com.

For cutting edge analyst reviews on top industries

Follow us on Twitter; Connect with us on LinkedIn; Follow us on Medium