APAC Next Generation Storage Market

APAC Next Generation Storage Market Analysis

The APAC Next Generation Storage Market is expected to register a CAGR of 14.3% during the forecast period.

• Rapid technological advancements and the increasing volume of unstructured data across different verticals/industries have created the need for secure, reliable, and cost-efficient storage infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region. In the current scenario, enterprises face challenges posed by the escalating data volumes, velocity, and variety, leading to increased demand for efficient storage solutions.
• Next-generation storage solutions are computing devices used to store, port, and extract data files and objects quickly and efficiently. Moreover, companies are increasingly moving towards using cloud technology for their day-to-day business operations. Humongous amounts of data are generated through the cloud platform that may be required for future reference. Therefore, robust and efficient storage solutions are required by the companies that are anticipated to drive the market growth over the forecast period.
• E-commerce is gaining traction worldwide, and the Asia Pacific region is no expectation to it. The growth in e-commerce activity across the region is also one of the critical factors for the regional market growth. Countries such as China, India, Japan, and South Korea, among others, are the key contributors to the growth of the e-commerce industry across the region. According to the World Economic Forum, e-commerce in China represents more than 50% of the global retail e-commerce sales. Moreover, according to the East Asia Forum, e-commerce sales in China stood at USD 2.3 trillion in 2020. Increasing internet usage for consumer purchases generates large amounts of crucial data, resulting in the increasing adoption of next-generation data storage solutions.
• The Asia-Pacific region presents a significant opportunity for next-generation storage solution vendors. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has escalated the trend of remote operations and online working. Increased usage of the internet in private and public organizations, as well as by individuals, is creating demand for smart storage solutions. Given the criticality of data generated through the internet, companies are highly inclined to invest in next-generation storage solutions, which is also driving market growth.
• Growth in the Asia-Pacific next-generation storage market is primarily driven by government initiatives to develop and promote digitalization. For instance, in May 2021, the Japanese government announced financial support to companies and municipalities to establish data centers in around five regional cities.
• Further, factors such as the growing demand for data storage in small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and the increasing proliferation of smartphones, laptops, and tablets in the Asia-Pacific region have augmented the demand for a next-generation storage solution.

APAC Next Generation Storage Market Trends

Retail end-use industry is expected to register significant growth

• The retail industry is widely adopting cloud computing, with its investment in cloud technologies increasing rapidly. Like the banking and manufacturing industries, retailers recognize the transformative role of cloud computing in the prevailing digital world.
• Increasing digitalization in the retail industry is also contributing to the growth of the market. Moreover, technologies such as IoT, AI, and ML, are also increasingly adopted by various retailers to transform their business operations and provide enhanced services to their customers.
• The retail industry is witnessing increased competition, with the increased smartphone users prevailing in the Asia Pacific region. The growth of e-commerce due to the rising popularity of smartphones is essentially contributing to online retail sales success. This increase in retail sales via mobiles is driving the e-commerce market on a large scale. As such, the retailers are finding themselves competing in a marketplace that is increasingly dominated by online marketplaces. According to NASSCOM, the e-commerce market in India is expected to register a growth of 5%, with a sales value of more than USD 56 billion in 2021. Moreover, smartphone shipments in India reached 38 million units in Q1 2021, increasing approximately 23% YoY. This growth is primarily driven by new product launches by the companies and delayed demand from 2020.
• A large amount of data is generated from retail transactions. Organizations and other third parties utilize this data to make various informed business decisions. Therefore, to make this data available, companies store the data in the structured or unstructured format in data warehouses. The growth of the overall retail industry in the Asia Pacific region is also contributing to the growth of next-generation storage solutions across the region.

China is expected to hold the major share

• China held the largest share in the market in 2020 and is expected to continue its dominance over the forecast period. The country has a large number of small and medium-sized organizations that require storage solutions for their business needs.
• China has a widespread e-commerce adoption. Also, the digitization of services is accelerating across a variety of sectors that include healthcare and education. Therefore, these industries are also expected to offer various growth opportunities for the market players to expand their customer base. For instance, in October 2021, DingTalk, one of the workplace apps in China, reported that its number of users has increased to 500 million in August 2021 from 400 million in January 2021.
• The COVID-19 pandemic increased demand for intelligent online banking services, and the traditional banking business witnessed significant challenges. With mobile baking being the primary channel for retail businesses, various banks began building digital banking models for customer acquisition. According to the China Internet Network Information Center, the percentage of online payment users accounted for 86.3% of the country's population. Therefore, the increased focus on digitalization in the banking industry and its growing adoption is also supporting the growth of next-generation storage solutions in the country.
• Furthermore, China also houses the most significant number of data centers in the Asia Pacific region. According to CBRE, there are around 47,000 data centers in China, and the number is expected to grow further over the coming years. This is because of the country's massive population and its saturation towards technology.

APAC Next Generation Storage Industry Overview

The Asia Pacific Next Generation Storage market, is competitive and moderately consolidated with several key players across the region. Some of the prominent players in the market include Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP, Dell Inc., SAMSUNG, IBM Corporation, and TOSHIBA CORPORATION. The market players are undertaking various strategies such as product development, merger and acquisition, and partnership and collaboration, among others.

• February 2021 - Toshiba Corporation announced the launch of a new MG09 Series of 18TB HDD. The new HDD is equipped with energy-assisted magnetic recording. Moreover, these HDDs are compatible with a large number of applications and operating systems. The company also aims to suffice the market demand due to increased data volumes, thereby helping storage solution designers and cloud-scale service providers achieve higher storage densities for cloud, hybrid-cloud, and on-premises rack-scale storage.
• October 2021 - DataDirect Networks (DDN) announced that the company would be locally manufacturing its data storage solutions in India. This initiative is in line with the nation's Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan; following which, the company will be delivering "Make in India" storage products to the customers.

APAC Next Generation Storage Market Leaders

APAC Next Generation Storage Market News

• October 2021 - Alibaba Cloud, a part of Alibaba Group, announced its new and first local data center in South Korea. The initiative aims to offer more secure, scalable, and reliable cloud services to its customers across the region. Moreover, following the development, the new data center will extend the Alibaba Cloud's offerings, that range from a database, storage, elastic compute, network services, and security to ML and data analytics capabilities, in the South Korea region.
• November 2021 - Oracle Corporation and Bharti Airtel announced to support India's growing digital economy and extend their partnership to introduce a range of cloud solutions for enterprise customers. According to the partnership agreement, Oracle will expand its west region capacity in India with Nxtra, the data center subsidiary of Airtel.