Double digit growth in the server, storage and networking segments in Ireland have bucked the Western Europe trend, chalking up large year-on-year revenue increases during Q2 2019 (+34.8%) and Q3 2019 (+26%).
Figures from IT market analyst Context also show that the UK enterprise market declined by -14% in Q3 2019, the second worst performance of any Western European country.
But in Ireland, server systems and server upgrades made strong inroads. In particular, data centre categories such as Blade and high end rack servers.
The storage market is also on the rise with backups and disk array systems especially driving revenues.
The star of the show is SD storage upgrades which saw a +67.3% year-on-year increase in units with +92% more total addressable capacity sold in Q3 2019 than in the same term last year.
The theme continues with enterprise networking displaying the fourth highest growth in Western Europe over both quarters.
“These figures suggest that, with the Brexit deadline looming, companies have started to get real about the need to have back-up on EU soil to avoid data compliance issues if the UK leaves the EU on a no-deal basis or with a light deal," stated Gurvan Meyer, Market and Business Enterprise Analyst at Context.
“There is little doubt that the current delays in Westminster are working in Ireland’s favour. But the country does have an advantageous business digital tax environment and state-of-the-art off-island fibre connectivity that make it an attractive place to settle for digital companies looking for a European home.”
There are 55 active data centres in Ireland, another 35 in the pipeline with eight under construction. Big investments by Google, Amazon, SAP and others are also propelling the Irish market.
“It will be interesting to follow the evolution of the enterprise market until the end of the proposed transition period in December 2020, as it will help us to understand how much of the growth observed in Ireland over the two last quarters is Brexit related,” added Gurvan.