Dell, Cisco Increase Hyper-Converged Market Share As Nutanix Slips

Hyper-converged system sales soar to $1.8 billion in the second quarter of 2019, with Dell increasing worldwide market share and Nutanix falling.

Worldwide Hyper-Converged Market Share Leaders

Dell Technologies’ grip on the hyper-converged infrastructure market tightened in the second quarter of 2019 while Nutanix’s worldwide market share dropped and Cisco overthrew Hewlett Packard Enterprise for third place.

Revenue in the global converged systems market grew 11 percent year over year to $3.9 billion during the second quarter of 2019, according to data from market research firm IDC. Sales from hyper-converged systems grew nearly 24 percent year-over-year during the second quarter, generating $1.8 billion in revenue.

The value proposition of converged solutions has evolved to align with the needs of a hybrid cloud world, according to Eric Sheppard, research vice president of Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies at IDC. “Modern converged solutions are driving growth because they allow organizations to leverage standardized, software-defined, and highly automated datacenter infrastructure that is increasingly the on-premises backbone of a seamless multi-cloud world,” said Sheppard.

Here are the worldwide market share leaders for hyper-converged systems and hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software.

Dell Technologies

Second Quarter Market Share: 29.2 Percent

Second Quarter Revenue: $533 Million

The Round Rock, Texas-based infrastructure giant is once again the worldwide leader in hyper-converged systems led by its market leading solution VxRail. Dell Technologies generated $533 million in hyper-converged revenue in the second quarter of 2019, up 27.4 percent year over year. The company’s worldwide market share increased from 28.4 percent in second quarter 2018 to 29.2 percent.

With global hyper-converged sales now accounting for around 47 percent of the total converged systems market, Dell has been innovating rapidly with VMware in the space. VxRail, which is jointly engineered alongside VMware, is the foundation for the company’s bullish Dell Technologies Cloud architecture. VxRail enhancements this year includes new systems based on the latest Intel and PowerEdge server technologies. Although facing stiff competition from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell remains the worldwide leader in servers and storage.

Nutanix

Second Quarter Market Share: 14.2 Percent

Second Quarter Revenue: $259 Million

The San Jose, Calif.-based hyper-converged pioneer lost both revenue and market share year over year during the second quarter of 2019. Nutanix generated $259 million in hyper-converged system sales in the second quarter, representing a 6 percent decrease from the $275 million in revenue the company generated one year ago. The company’s market share dropped from 18.7 percent in second quarter 2018 to 14.2 percent.

From a software ownership view of the market, HCI systems running Nutanix hyper-converged software represented $522 million in total second quarter 2019 vendor revenue or 28.6 percent of the total software market. Nutanix only trailed VMware in terms of worldwide HCI software market share. Nutanix, who just found a new channel chief in former Juniper Networks leader Christian Alvarez, has nearly completed its transformation from a HCI appliance vendor into a purely software and application company.

Cisco

Second Quarter Market Share: 6.2 Percent

Second Quarter Revenue: $114 Million

The San Jose, Calif.-based networking giant overthrew Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the second quarter of 2019 to take over third place in the global hyper-converged market. Cisco generated $114 million in hyper-converged revenue in the second quarter up a whopping 47 percent year-over-year from $78 million. The company won 6.2 percent market share, up from 5.3 percent share in the second quarter of 2018.

Cisco has been the worldwide network leader for decades and launched its flagship HyperFlex hyper-converged system in 2016. The company has consistently been enhancing the platform to accommodate a multi-cloud world including forming several technology partnerships with the likes of Veeam and Nexenta Systems. Cisco is doubling down on artificial intelligence and machine learning innovation to boost both its networking and HyperFlex strategy moving forward.

VMware

Software HCI Market Share: 38 percent

Second Quarter Software Revenue: #694 Million

VMware is the worldwide leader from an HCI software ownership point of view, with systems running VMware hyper-converged software representing $694 million in total second quarter vendor revenue. In terms of HCI software, VMware owns 38 percent of the worldwide market, up from 33.7 percent during the same quarter one year ago.

VMware, which is part of the Dell Technologies family of brands, owns a slew of hyper-converged software products with its flagship being vSAN. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based virtualization superstar has been on an acquisition spree this year, acquiring a slew of companies to boost its software, networking, security and containers strategy including Carbon Black, Avi Networks and Pivotal Software. At VMWorld 2019, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said his company will be “the leading enabler of Kubernetes.”