Following a third quarter surge last year, growth in Cisco Systems Inc’s storage sales slowed down in the last months of 2005, judging by the company’s comments during its earnings call yesterday.
The networking giant said that sales of its SAN switches and directors grew in the high single [percentage] digits year-on-year in its latest fiscal quarter ending January 31 2006.
Researcher Dell’Oro Group estimates SAN sales and market share on a calendar quarter basis. For Q404 it estimated that Cisco’s storage networking sales were $60.5m. Add the highest possible single digit growth of 9%, and Cisco’s Q405 storage networking revenue would be $66m.
That is a big drop from the $86m that Dell’Oro estimates that Cisco saw in Q305. There’s been a classic pullback, just like you would see in a more mature market where shares and players and well dug-in. This is a tough market for Cisco to gain share in, said Tam Dell’Oro, founder of Dell’Oro.
