Top 4 Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Market Share Leaders

CRN breaks down the hyper-converged infrastructure market share leaders and HCI sales in the fourth quarter 2018 based on new data from IDC.

The Booming Hyper-Converged Market

Worldwide converged systems sales reached $4.15 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018, up 15 percent year over year, with hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) being the driving force behind the growth, according to new data from research firm IDC.

“As HCI solutions are increasingly capable of operating business-critical workloads while reducing data center complexity and promoting affordability,” said Sebastian Lagana, Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies research manager at IDC. “The segment will continue to expand its share of the overall converged systems market.”

The leaders driving the $4.15 billion converged and hyper-converged market are Dell EMC, VMware, Nutanix and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. IDC breaks down the HCI market share numbers for the fourth quarter 2018.

Converged Systems Market Breakdown

Before getting into the hyper-converged infrastructure market share leaders, it is important to note that sales for certified reference converged systems and integrated infrastructure dropped 6.4 percent year over year to $1.6 billion in the fourth quarter. Additionally, integrated platforms generated $610 million in sales, representing a decline of 8.4 percent year over year. These two converged and integrated systems markets made up 53.5 percent of the total worldwide converged systems market, while hyper-converged amounted to 46.5 percent of the overall market.

Hyper-converged system sales grew a whopping 57.2 percent year over year in the fourth quarter, generating $1.93 billion in revenue.

IDC offers two ways to rank vendors within the hyper-converged market: by the brand of the hyperconverged solution or by the owner of the software providing the core hyperconverged capabilities regardless of how it was branded.

Hyper-Converged Systems As Branded

Dell EMC: 28.6%

Nutanix: 14.8%

HPE: 5.4%

Dell EMC was the largest supplier of hyper-converged systems in the market winning 28.6 percent share, nearly double its nearest competitor. The Round-Rock, Texas-based infrastructure giant generated $552 million in HCI sales, up 64 percent year over year. Its leading market share also climbed from 27.4 percent in fourth quarter 2017 to 28.6 percent share.

HCI pioneer Nutanix placed second in terms of hyper-converged market share at 14.8 percent with $285 million in sales. Although HCI revenues grew nearly 24 percent year over year, Nutanix’s market share fell from 18.8 percent in fourth quarter 2017 to 14.8 percent. The San Jose, Calif.-based company has transformed into a software-only HCI provider over the past 12 months.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise won the bronze medal for HCI market share with 5.4 percent, a slight increase from the 5 percent share it held in fourth quarter 2017. Palo Alto, Calif.-based HPE generated sales of $105 million, up a whopping 70 percent year over year, which was the highest sales growth increase in the market.

Hyper-Converged Systems Based On Owner of HCI Software

VMware: 38.1%

Nutanix: 29.8%

HPE: 5.4%

From a software ownership market view, systems running VMware hyper-converged software represented $735 million in total fourth quarter vendor revenue or 38.1 percent of the market. VMware’s software sales in this category jumped 86 percent year over year, with market share growing from 32.2 percent in fourth quarter 2017 to 38.1 percent.

Systems running Nutanix hyper-converged software represented $576 million in fourth quarter vendor revenue or 29.8 percent of the total market. Nutanix software revenue increased 55 percent year over year, while its share in this category slightly fell from 30.2 percent in fourth quarter 2017 to 29.8 percent.

HCI systems running HPE software represented $105 million in vendor revenue, up nearly 70 percent year over year. HPE’s market share in this category slightly increased from 5.1 percent in fourth quarter 2017 to 5.4 percent.