According to IHS global power distribution unit (PDU) revenues are set to grow by 5.6% in 2015-- double the increase forecast for unit shipment growth as the market shifts towards higher-priced rack PDU products.
IHS says a couple of factors lead to this shift. First is the growth of intelligent products, since more customers demand power usage monitoring, efficiency reports, decreased datacentre power power use and capacity planning. Meanwhile rack densities are on the up, driving demand for pricier 3-phase (and higher) rack PDUs.
“While different regions of the world are at different stages in the adoption of the higher-priced product types, we do see an overall trend globally toward rack PDUs with intelligent features such as metering and switching and PDUs with higher power ratings,” the analyst says.
Intelligent rack PDUs account for 19% of 2014 unit shipments and 58% of revenues-- and IHS forecasts twice the 2015 growth as non-intelligent rack PDUs.
Geographically Europe and the Americas show higher intelligent rack PDU adoption than Africa and some parts of Asia, but IHS also points out the M. East as an emerging market where adoption is faster than other regions.
