Revenues of IT racks and enclosures are forecast to grow by nearly a billion dollars over the next five years; from an estimated $1.7 billion in 2011 to $2.6 billion at the end of 2016.

Source: IMS Research (IHS Inc.)

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Revenues of IT racks and enclosures are forecast to grow by nearly a billion dollars over the next five years; from an estimated $1.7 billion in 2011 to $2.6 billion at the end of 2016. Most of the revenues will be added in Asia, where new data center construction and upgrades are driving a fast rate of growth.

A new report from IMS Research, recently acquired by IHS Inc., projects revenue growth to average close to 9% over the next five years. However, growth for this year is forecast to be weaker due to the continuation of the Eurozone crisis and the associated drop in infrastructure investment in the region.

Asia will add the most revenues over the next five years and grow at a faster rate than most of the rest of the world. Report author Elizabeth Cruz notes that “China is an important market to watch. IMS Researchprojects it will nearly double in revenues over the next five years. Given the region’s rapidly growing economy, there are major opportunities for the development of both networking and data center infrastructure.”

Aside from China, other regions expected to grow by double-digits over the five-year forecast are Brazil, the Middle East, Russia, and India. These regions’ growing economies and increasing deployment of IT hardware will drive the need for racks and enclosures in the future. 

Cruz continues, “There are three major factors affecting growth in the IT racks and enclosures market: the economy, data center construction and refurbishment, and the trend towards virtualization and server consolidation. Growth of the first two drive increased rack and enclosure revenues, while server virtualization and consolidation inhibit rack growth.” Because virtualization optimizes the performance of servers it also reduces the number of servers and racks for a given computing load. While this is an important trend to watch, IMS Research believes that the impact of economic and data center growth will more than offset this negative trend.

Though 2012 will be a slow growth year globally, the market will recover with a billion dollars being added over the next five years. “So rack manufacturers can rest assured that ample opportunity abounds, especially if looking to the BRIC regions and the Middle East.”

IMS Research regularly analyses all aspects of the data center infrastructure market. More information regarding these detailed reports can be found here.