India, China buck Asia's branded tape drive trend

While most of the branded tape drive markets in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) are projected to see a decline, India and China could buck the trend, says a market analyst.

According to IDC, the region will decrease to US$251.7 million by 2009, which represents a negative compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 0.5 percent between 2004 and 2009. The market was estimated to be worth US$257.71 million in 2004.

India and China, however, are expected to see their markets increase in shipment over the same period. IDC predicts that India's branded tape drive market will grow to US$38.1 million in 2009 from US$36.4 million in 2004, which translates to a CAGR of 0.9 percent. The Chinese market is projected to grow to US$41.2 million in 2009 from US$40.9 million in 2004, a CAGR of 0.1 percent.

"The low growth rates in India and China are relatively significant in the face of declining growth in the Asia-Pacific branded tape drive market," said Jack Yu, IDC Asia-Pacific's market analyst for storage research.

"Due to the sheer size of their internal markets, these are growing countries in a region that is expected to see an overall decline in tape drive sales."

Yu explained that the decline is due in part to businesses' consolidation of storage infrastructure, preference for fewer but higher-capacity tape drives and tape automation systems, as well as the increased use of disk-based systems that provide near-line backup recovery capability.