Western Digital Expects Storage Market to Grow by Billions of Dollars

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

Cloud computing and IoT are pushing demand for more storage

Don't feel too bad for storage players as the prices of hard drives and solid state drives continue to come down -- there's still money to be made. Lots of it. By Western Digital's estimation, the global storage market will reach $38 billion by the end of this year, up from $36 billion a year ago. And that's not all -- WD sees the growth continuing into next year and beyond, with 2015 seeing $42 billion in storage sales.
Home computers and PC storage applications account for nearly half of all storage sales, though WD sees enterprise customers becoming bigger buyers in the not-too-distant future, Digitimes reports. This is due to a rise in popularity among cloud-based services and the growing Internet of Things (IoT) trend.
As it stands, the overall demand for storage reached 4.4 zetabytes in 2013, or 4.4 billion terabytes. A drop in the bucket compared to where things are headed over the next several years -- by 2010, that figure is expected to balloon to 44 zetabytes.
WD expects enterprise demand to outpace that of PCs next by either next year or 2016. To ensure it capitalizes on however the market shakes out, WD is planning a series of product lines in varying categories, including new opportunities in cloud compouting, IoT, NAS, and personal cloud applications.
Image Credit: Flickr (Dominik Bartsch)
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