EMC’s record-breaking profits are proof of organisations’ growing need for capacity, security and storage management systems to handle proliferating data-retention regulations.

Last week, the storage giant reported annual revenue of $13.2bn (£6.7bn), up 19 per cent from last year, and profit up 43 per cent to $1.7bn (£900m). Fourth-quarter figures were also impressive, with sales up 19 per cent to $3.8bn (£1.9bn) and income up 33 per cent to $526m (£265m).

Demand for storage capacity continues to grow at nearly 60 per cent per year as a series of regulations ­ including Sarbanes-Oxley and the EU directive on data retention ­ require firms to store more data for longer before archiving or deleting.

And there will be further changes, according to Dave Reinsel, vice president at analyst IDC.

“Storage efficiency will intensify throughout 2008 and increase focus on virtualisation strategies and green initiatives as well as information consolidation techniques such as de-duplication,” he said.

EMC chief executive Joe Tucci said the strong performance came from driving “more technology and product integrations across our information storage, content management and archiving, and RSA information security business units.”

The firm’s storage system revenue for 2007 was $5.7bn (£2.9bn), up 12 per cent on 2006, while maintenance and services revenue grew 13 per cent to $2.8bn (£1.4bn). And amid growing concern about securing data at rest as well as in transit, sales of security systems grew by 246 per cent to $525m (£264m).