Total EMEA PBBA open system shipments were valued at $305.5 million — up 12.2% year on year. EMEA PBBA mainframe system sales declined 6.1% year on year in 2Q20.

"COVID-19 was expected to have a negative impact on companies’ revenue plans," said Jimena Sisa, senior research analyst, EMEA Storage Systems, IDC. "But the impact on tech investment has been limited, especially in the data protection and recovery area, as in many cases technology has been used to meet critical business issues caused by COVID-19 and to preserve and protect the most strategic company asset — data."

Many companies were not only able to assess the economic impact of the slowdown but were already planning for recovery, she said: "From the beginning of lockdown, some vendors introduced financial programs to help customers and partners fund their critical technology needs with the introduction of more flexible consumption and payment options. These programs helped to boost the PBBA market in EMEA, with figures showing a rise in data protection solutions during 2Q20. Vendor programs that not only helped customers overcome their challenges but also enable them to build an effective customer success function were the most successful."

Regional Highlights

– Western Europe

The PBBA tracker for Western Europe grew in value, with 11.6% year-on-year growth, reaching $253.3 million in 2Q20.

The DACH market continued to be the largest and strongest in Western Europe in 2Q20, responsible for 37.7% of market value, with growth of 53.2% year on year.

The U.K.+I lost 4.6 points in market share since last year, at 20.3% market value, and declined 9.1% in value year on year.

The French PBBA market ranked third with 46.7% growth year on year in value and 18.1% market share.

"There were some replacement cycle sales during the second quarter," said Sisa. "Using this opportunity, some European enterprises shifted to an operational model when purchasing their backup and disaster recovery solutions to reduce uncertainty and get a framework that would help address their future demand needs."

– CEMA

The CEMA PBBA market grew 9.3% in value year on year, reaching $67.6 million in 2Q20. The two subregions, however, had differing trends. CEE, representing 37% of the CEMA market, declined 4.5% year on year due to a significant slump in most countries, excluding Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. MEA, with 63% of the CEMA PBBA market, grew 19.2% year on year in 2Q20, triggered by the Gulf countries, Turkey, and South Africa. Datacenter projects that were in the pipeline were carried out as planned, and data protection and recovery solutions were an integral part of these projects.

"While a slowdown in PBBA shipments is expected by the end of 2020, the market will not see a significant decline in value in the short term," said Marina Kostova, research manager, CEMA Storage Systems, IDC. "Vendors are proving to be flexible in managing the technology business and customer expectations by refreshing their portfolios and adapting their offerings to the hybrid cloud environment needs, mitigating the general business deterioration caused by COVID-19. Besides all-flash storage and HCI, PBBA will emerge as another segment with growth potential in CEMA."

Taxonomy Notes

IDC defines a purpose-built backup appliance as a standalone disk-based solution that uses software, disk arrays, server engines, or nodes that are used for backup data and specifically for data coming from a backup application (e.g., NetWorker, NetBackup, TSM, and Backup Exec) or that can be tightly integrated with the backup software to catalog, index, schedule, and perform data movement. PBBAs are deployed in standalone configurations or as gateways. PBBA solutions deployed in a gateway configuration connect to and store backup data on general-purpose storage. Here, the gateway device serves as the component that is purpose built solely for backup and not to support any other workload or application. Regardless of packaging (as an appliance or gateway), PBBAs can have multiple interfaces or protocols. They can also provide and receive replication to or from remote sites and a secondary PBBA for disaster recovery.

IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Purpose-Built Backup Appliance Tracker provides vendor share, market size, and forecasts for purpose-built backup appliances. IDC provides key market insights and growth for vendors active in the PBBA market and for those looking to introduce new products into the market. Revenue and capacity for disk systems behind PBBA gateways are included in the PBBA market sizing and forecast. Some PBBA solutions integrate the data movement engine (backup application) with the appliance, while others serve only as a target for incoming backup application data. Both solutions are included in PBBA market sizing, though segmentation between the two product categories is provided.

Major companies covered in the tracker include Dell Inc., Veritas, HPE, IBM, Quantum, Barracuda, Oracle, Fujitsu, Exagrid, HDS, Unitrends, and FalconStor Software.