New Delhi, (IANS) : The spending from the telecommunications vertical is driving India’s external storage market that witnessed a growth of 13.8 per cent year-on-year (YoY) and stood at $74.6 million in the first quarter this year, International Data Corporation (IDC) said on Thursday.

While banking, telecom, professional services, manufacturing and government continued to be the key contributors, multimillion-dollar deals in telecommunications vertical drove the growth, IDC said in a statement.

IDC forecast the external enterprise storage systems market to register single-digit growth in terms of compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the 2016-21 period.

“External storage is getting very dynamic in addressing new age demands from emerging technologies such as real-time business analytics, Internet of Things, augmented reality and robotics,” said Dileep Nadimpalli, Associate Research Manager, Enterprise Infrastructure, IDC.

The high-end storage segment witnessed a strong YoY growth in the first quarter and entry-level storage saw a marginal growth while mid-level external storage saw a marginal YoY decline in market share during the quarter.

Dell continued to lead the market with a market share of 43.4 per cent followed by HPE.

“Implementation of GST is expected to have a negative impact on enterprise IT for the next two quarters. In this challenging environment, taking a solutions-centric approach with the right technology partnerships will help suppliers stay ahead in their game,” added Sharyathi Nagesh, Senior Research Manager, Enterprise Infrastructure.