IT survey shows strong demand amid AI revolution: BofA

Bank of America said its latest Dell (NYSE:) storage value-added reseller (VAR) survey indicated stable demand trends and artificial intelligence benefits.

The investment bank noted that 30% of VARs indicated that their sales tracked above plan. While the weighted score for respondents was flat overall, the level of discounting is moderating from last quarter.

AI servers are said to be driving incremental storage demand, with 60% of respondents noting that storage is getting sold incrementally with AI servers.

“35% of respondents noted that sales of Flash-based systems are accelerating as part of the mix given increasing AI spend,” stated BofA.

In addition, short-term demand remains robust. “A meaningfully high percentage of respondents said that the pipeline has mostly short-term deals and were unclear if storage demand will sustain through CY24,” said Bofa. “Only 30% of respondents note that the pipeline has both short & long-term deals.”

“Some respondents noted that discounting had come down in the quarter for the first time since C3Q22. This suggests to us that pricing is stabilizing and demand is slowly improving.”