Egypt and South Africa experienced sharp declines in their external storage markets in the third quarter of 2013, according to research from the International Data Corporation (IDC).

The IDC released its ‘EMEA Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker’ report and found that Egypt and South Africa recorded decline of respectively 17.3% and 36.7% each.

According to the IDC, external storage encompasses all enterprise storage systems outside of the server enclosure. This includes the likes of THE fibre channel and network attached storage (NAS).

Furthermore, the IDC defines an enterprise storage system as a set of storage elements, including controllers, cables, and in some instances a host bus adapter associated with three or more mass storage devices.

Swapna Subramani, senior research analyst, Systems and Infrastructure Solutions at the IDC, has explained as to why South Africa and Egypt have had sharp drops in this market segment.

“South Africa faced a major decline of 37% in the third quarter of 2013 as majority investments were typical run-rate business in contrast to the third quarter of 2012 which was large projects driven,” Subramani said.

Subramani added, “Egypt predictably declined by 17% owing to continued political instability and uncertainty in the country.

“All major investments have been currently put on hold,” said Subramani.

The IDC also found that the overall Middle East and Africa (MEA) region’s external storage market declined by 8.8% year on year in the third quarter of last year.

External storage revenue in the region fell to $241.4 million in the same period, according to the market intelligence firm.

Other countries, however, including Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia recorded healthy year-on-year growth of 17.6% in 2013.