South Africa Data Center Storage - Market Share Analysis, Industry Trends & Statistics, Growth Forecasts (2024 - 2029)

South Africa Data Center Storage - Market Share Analysis, Industry Trends & Statistics, Growth Forecasts (2024 - 2029)

The South Africa Data Center Storage Market size is estimated at USD 460.5 million in 2024, and is expected to reach USD 796.30 million by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 11.70% during the forecast period (2024-2029).

South Africa, the most developed cloud market in sub-Saharan Africa, is experiencing a surge in data center investment to meet the growing demand for cloud services. This development is leading to more demand for data storage as well. Global giants like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and VMware are targeting this market to expand the local data center facilities. Such factors showcase a positive demand for the market.

Key Highlights

• Under Construction IT Load Capacity: The upcoming IT load capacity of the South African data center market is expected to reach 828.92 MW by 2029.
• Under Construction Raised Floor Space: The country's construction of raised floor area is expected to increase to 4.4 million sq. ft by 2029.
• Planned Racks: The country's total number of racks to be installed is expected to reach 220201 units by 2029. Johannesburg is expected to house the maximum number of racks by 2029.
• Planned Submarine Cables: There are close to 9 submarine cable systems connecting South Korea, and many are under construction. One such submarine cable that is estimated to start service in 2023 is 2Africa, which stretches over 45,000 kilometers with landing points from Cape Town, Mtunzini, and Port Elizabeth in South Africa.

South Africa Data Center Storage Market Trends

IT and Telecom to Hold Significant Share

• The rollout of 5G networks is expected to strengthen the digital economy in South Africa and increase the demand for high data center storage infrastructure. 5G's arrival promises a major increase in speeds, low latency, and unforeseen network capabilities, paving the way for groundbreaking applications with real-time connectivity across everything.
• The rapidly increasing 4G penetration and the upcoming 5G wave are forcing telecom vendors to invest in the South African data center market. In October 2022, the South African telecom provider Telkom established the 5G high-speed internet network with the help of Huawei Technologies from China. Huawei continues to assist South Africa in developing its 5G networks. The prominent 5G network on the African continent has more than 2,800 base stations deployed.
• In September 2022, the US Department of Commerce's Market Development Cooperator Program (MDCP), run by the International Trade Administration, awarded the Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA) a grant for its proposed Roadmap to 5G Success initiative. This project aims to accelerate the deployment of 5G in South Africa and boost business for US-based enterprises. South Africa has 109 million active mobile connections.
• 5G is close to seven times better in terms of throughput compared to 4G, at 10 Gbs compared to 1.45 Gbs. With NVMe or SSD over HDD, such enterprise-level technology allows significant I/O throughput. The demand for NVMe is increasing in SSD servers and storage appliances, which is expected to drive the market during the forecast period.

All-Flash Storage to Witness Significant Growth

• All-flash arrays are evidently revolutionizing data center storage, offering cloud-like application consolidation and enhanced agility. The growth in data generated by enterprises and the adoption of cloud technology are expected to drive the market.
• Chinese cloud providers Huawei and Alibaba see South Africa as a key market. Huawei has taken an aggressive strategy, setting a target of achieving 15% market share by the end of 2023. Huawei is looking to increase its market share by providing "everything as a service" (XaaS) solutions to expand its reach. Similarly, in Q3 2022, Alibaba partnered with BCX to increase its cloud solutions by employing similar strategies, focusing on SaaS services.
• With big data and analytics, the data access and processing patterns demand a higher storage performance, along with increased concurrency. The AI industry is growing across Africa, with over 2400 companies specializing in AI, 41% of which are startups. The greater penetration is in South Africa.
• Furthermore, the lagging storage performance slowed response times on key member-facing applications, and legacy storage became complex to manage and difficult to expand. After the deployment of all-flash arrays, customer-facing applications saw a 70% improvement in response times. Storage-related capital and operating costs were reduced by over 50%. Downtime and disaster recovery risk (DRR) for SQL servers and private cloud workloads were eliminated. Physical space requirements for storage were slashed from 40 to 7 rack units. These advantages of all-flash storage cater to the major market growth expected during the forecast period.

South Africa Data Center Storage Industry Overview

The South African data center storage market is moderately consolidated among the players and has gained a competitive edge in recent years. Some of the major players in the country are Dell Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Pure Storage Inc. These players, with a prominent market share, focus on expanding their customer base across the region. They leverage strategic collaborative initiatives to increase their market share and profitability.

• For instance, in March 2024, Seagate launched Exos X24 CMR 7,200 rpm Helium SATA and SAS 3.5-inch 24 TB HDD with 10 Platters. They are designed for maximum storage capacity and the highest rack-space efficiency. Exos X24 is purpose-built for hyperscale with performance and proven technology. The helium 3.5-inch 7,200 rpm nearline drive offers both SATA and SAS interfaces and delivers enhanced caching that performs up to 3x better than solutions that only utilize read or write caching.

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