The global enterprise SSD market grew significantly in Q3 2024, driven by huge demand for AI-related tasks. Rising prices also played a significant role as suppliers struggled to keep up with demand, according to TrendForce.
Overall, industry revenue grew an impressive 28.6% quarter-on-quarter. Demand for high-capacity drives was fueled by the emergence of NVIDIA H100/H200 accelerators and steady orders for servers for training AI models. As a result, the total volume of SSD purchases increased by 15% compared to the previous quarter. In the fourth quarter, TrendForce forecasts a slowdown in revenue growth as demand begins to cool. Overall purchase volumes will fall as the peak appears to be behind us and server OEMs are revising orders downward.
It was previously reported that SSD shipments in the second quarter fell by 18.4%, while the total capacity increased due to server NVMe drives. It is noteworthy that a year ago the balance of power in the market was different. Despite strong market growth in the third quarter, suppliers’ revenue positions remained unchanged. But changes in the order structure for high-capacity SSDs, which are more expensive than others, led to different growth rates among vendors.
Image source: Samsung
Samsung maintained its position as the leading supplier of enterprise SSDs, with revenue reaching $3.2 billion in the third quarter. The company’s growth exceeded expectations due to increased demand for high-capacity models, although some deliveries had to be canceled due to production optimization. The share of server SSDs in the company’s revenue continues to grow. The company is expected to maintain revenue growth in the fourth quarter amid large volumes of shipments of SSDs with a capacity of up to 8 TB.
SK Group (SK hynix and Solidigm) maintained its position as the second-largest supplier of enterprise solid-state drives, with revenue rising to $2.058 billion in the third quarter. The company achieved record shipments of AI solutions. In the fourth quarter, SK Group’s revenue is expected to remain stable and will be supported by mass production of next-generation PCIe 5.0 SSDs and 176-layer TLC NAND memory. The new products, along with Solidigm’s existing PCIe 4.0-based SSDs and 144-layer TLC and QLC memory, are expected to keep revenue flat.
Third place was taken by Micron with $1.153 billion in revenue, thanks to stable growth in shipments of high-capacity SSDs. Increased supplies of such products led to an increase in the company’s performance. However, Micron may face problems in the next quarter due to increased demand for 60 TB SSDs – this Micron product is still in the process of being validated by many partners, which could affect revenue in the fourth quarter.
Image source: Samsung
Kioxia’s revenue grew to $636 million, the company took fourth place among suppliers. Although overall shipments have increased, the company is lagging behind competitors in sales growth of high-capacity products. In order to balance the situation, the company relied on limiting the supply of SSDs to 8 TB. Now it is strengthening cooperation with key North American customers and trying to increase supplies of high-capacity SSDs.
Western Digital and SanDisk are now responsible for HDD and NAND/SSD respectively, so the reporting structure is changing. The business separation is aimed at increasing operational flexibility and deepening cooperation with key North American clients. In the third quarter, Western Digital’s enterprise SSD business recorded revenue growth of 100% quarter-on-quarter to $332 million, driven by increased demand from North American customers.