The data did not get storages – Newspaper Kommersant No. 230 (7431) dated 12/12/2022

In January-November in Russia, sales of data storage systems (SHD) in monetary terms decreased year-on-year by 30-50%, while equipment prices increased one and a half times, calculated in F + tech. Market participants explain the situation by the departure of the main Western suppliers from the Russian Federation, rising prices and business distrust in domestic and Chinese manufacturers. But during 2023-2024, sales will recover, experts believe, as the need for data storage from the business will exceed the capacity headroom.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the F + tech report on the Russian storage market for eleven months of 2022. It follows from it that the volume of sales of systems in money terms decreased by 30-50%, while the cost of such solutions increased by an average of 50%. “The need for storage, taking into account the increase in the volume of processed and stored data, is constantly growing, but due to sanctions and geopolitical factors, demand cannot be met, which caused an unprecedented drop in sales,” F + tech notes. The company adds that in the storage market in different years there has already been a decrease in sales, but, as a rule, within 10%.

According to IDC, at the end of 2021, the Chinese Huawei with a share of 39.1% in money was the leader in storage sales in Russia, the Russian Yadro (20.9%) was in second place, and the American Dell (9.5%) was in third. . In total for 2021 in Russia DWH for $655 million (40.8 billion rubles) was sold. A Kommersant source in the electronics market notes that in 2022 this figure will amount to $320–450 million (19–28 billion rubles), “it is difficult to more accurately estimate sales volume and brand shares, including due to parallel imports.”

After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, many foreign storage vendors, including Dell, Hitachi, HP, officially stopped deliveries to the Russian Federation. Huawei did not make statements, but also froze sales. In order to avoid a shortage of storage systems in the public sector, the government has proposed using the equipment of private companies such as Yandex, Croc, Rostelecom, and others (see Kommersant on March 15). The authorities also canceled import duties on all imported computer equipment, including storage systems (see Kommersant on March 16).

But already in the summer, the public sector almost halved the amount of purchased equipment, in terms of money, supplies fell seven times (see Kommersant of July 18). At the same time, domestic storage manufacturers began to increase production and acquire specialized software developers (see Kommersant of December 1).

Maxim Koposov, director of Promobit (a manufacturer of servers and storage systems), confirmed that storage sales volumes have significantly decreased. “This happened due to a decrease in the supply of foreign storage systems. Equipment brought through parallel imports is sold at an inflated price,” he said. At the same time, the top manager believes, the business is not yet ready to fully trust the less familiar Russian and Chinese equipment, and in some cases it does not meet the technical requirements. Most of the customers were unable to adjust to the new realities in conditions when suppliers began to require prepayment and raised prices by two to five times, Timur Mustafaev, commercial director of Aerodisk, confirms.

Parallel schemes for importing equipment only make it possible to “patch certain holes” in the infrastructure, but they do not solve the issue systematically, says Evgeny Makaryin, head of the Linxdatacenter product and solution development group. “Our manufacturers cannot scale production so quickly, there are decent solutions in China, but it takes time to build relationships, establish supply chains, technical support, testing,” he says.

In 2023-2024, storage volume sales in Russia will recover, as business needs for data storage will exceed the available capacity reserves, and Russian manufacturers will increase supplies, Maxim Koposov believes. Aleksey Melnikov, Managing Director of F+ tech, believes that customers will begin to more actively switch to software-defined storage systems (special software allows you not to be tied to specific equipment), which are supported by Russian manufacturers.

Timofey Kornev