Market Trends of APAC Next Generation Storage Industry
This section covers the major market trends shaping the APAC Next Generation Storage Market according to our research experts:
Retail end-use industry is expected to register significant growth
- The retail industry is widely adopting cloud computing, with its investment in cloud technologies increasing rapidly. Like the banking and manufacturing industries, retailers recognize the transformative role of cloud computing in the prevailing digital world.
- Increasing digitalization in the retail industry is also contributing to the growth of the market. Moreover, technologies such as IoT, AI, and ML, are also increasingly adopted by various retailers to transform their business operations and provide enhanced services to their customers.
- The retail industry is witnessing increased competition, with the increased smartphone users prevailing in the Asia Pacific region. The growth of e-commerce due to the rising popularity of smartphones is essentially contributing to online retail sales success. This increase in retail sales via mobiles is driving the e-commerce market on a large scale. As such, the retailers are finding themselves competing in a marketplace that is increasingly dominated by online marketplaces. According to NASSCOM, the e-commerce market in India is expected to register a growth of 5%, with a sales value of more than USD 56 billion in 2021. Moreover, smartphone shipments in India reached 38 million units in Q1 2021, increasing approximately 23% YoY. This growth is primarily driven by new product launches by the companies and delayed demand from 2020.
- A large amount of data is generated from retail transactions. Organizations and other third parties utilize this data to make various informed business decisions. Therefore, to make this data available, companies store the data in the structured or unstructured format in data warehouses. The growth of the overall retail industry in the Asia Pacific region is also contributing to the growth of next-generation storage solutions across the region.
China is expected to hold the major share
- China held the largest share in the market in 2020 and is expected to continue its dominance over the forecast period. The country has a large number of small and medium-sized organizations that require storage solutions for their business needs.
- China has a widespread e-commerce adoption. Also, the digitization of services is accelerating across a variety of sectors that include healthcare and education. Therefore, these industries are also expected to offer various growth opportunities for the market players to expand their customer base. For instance, in October 2021, DingTalk, one of the workplace apps in China, reported that its number of users has increased to 500 million in August 2021 from 400 million in January 2021.
- The COVID-19 pandemic increased demand for intelligent online banking services, and the traditional banking business witnessed significant challenges. With mobile baking being the primary channel for retail businesses, various banks began building digital banking models for customer acquisition. According to the China Internet Network Information Center, the percentage of online payment users accounted for 86.3% of the country's population. Therefore, the increased focus on digitalization in the banking industry and its growing adoption is also supporting the growth of next-generation storage solutions in the country.
- Furthermore, China also houses the most significant number of data centers in the Asia Pacific region. According to CBRE, there are around 47,000 data centers in China, and the number is expected to grow further over the coming years. This is because of the country's massive population and its saturation towards technology.