Getty’s simplification and dramatic
lowering of iStock prices in September in an effort to better complete with Shutterstock doesn’t seem to be working. The number of images downloaded in the last half of 2014 for 430 of iStock’s top producers was down about 34% compared to the first half of 2014.
It is important to note that total career downloads since 2002 for these 430 contributors has been between 54,982,100 and 57,311,200. This represents about one-third of all images downloaded from iStock since its founding. Consequently this relatively small number of contributors should give a good indication of what is happening at iStock overall.
While downloads for this group in the past three years have been down in the second half of the year compared to the first half, the drop this year seems more significant. See chart below.
| |
Minimum |
Maximum |
Average |
Six Month |
Year |
Year |
| |
Total Career |
Total Career |
Downloads |
Minimum |
Minimum |
Average |
| |
Downloads |
Downloads |
|
Downloads |
Downloads |
Downloads |
| End 2011 |
46,100,000 |
|
|
|
|
|
| July 2012 |
48,214,000 |
|
|
2,114,000 |
|
|
| End 2012 |
49,972,000 |
52,217,000 |
50,744,500 |
1,758,000 |
3,872,000 |
|
| July 2013 |
51,949,000 |
54,252,000 |
53,100,500 |
1,977,000 |
3,735,000 |
|
| End 2013 |
53,248,000 |
55,579,000 |
54,413,500 |
1,299,000 |
3,276,000 |
2,803,500 |
| July 2014 |
54,291,100 |
56,658,200 |
55,474,650 |
1,043,100 |
2,342,100 |
|
| End 2014 |
54,982,100 |
57,311,200 |
56,146,650 |
691,000 |
1,734,100 |
2,031,600 |
For more information about how I arrived at these numbers see this
link.
The average number of downloads in 2014 for this group is on 3.6% of their total historical downloads. There may be some other explanations for the decline.
Are Subscription Downloads Counted?
There seems to be a possibility that subscription downloads are not counted. I get my information on the total number of images downloaded from the contributors profile page.
See example. In theory, every time there is a paid download of an image it is added to the count here. That’s the way it has been for years. Since the breakdown of this number is also attached to each individual image in a photographer’s portfolio the photographer instantly determine which of his/her images are best sellers.
Some photographers have indicated that subscription downloads don’t seem to be added to their total number of downloads. This would seem unusual, but it is certainly possible. At Shutterstock all subscription, as well as single image, downloads are counted. To the best of my knowledge the same is true of all other microstock sites that have a subscription offering.
For several years Getty has been trying to find away to keep their customers from fleeing to Shutterstock and other microstock brands, but with little evidence of success. In April 2014, after years of only offering single image pricing, iStock introduced a subscription option.
In a September PR release iStock said that, “subscriptions now represent a meaningful percentage of total iStock sales and materially increased spend-per-customer.” They also indicated that three-quarters of subscription sales were generated by Signature images. The images of about three-quarters of the contributors I track are in the Signature collection. The subscription plan that makes Signature images available to customers costs $3999 per year or $499 per month.
If subscription downloads are not tracked that could explain a lot about why total downloads are so low.
Images From The Getty Images Collection
In the last year or so Getty has been moving a lot of images from the Getty Images royalty free collection to iStock. In many cases these images are promoted ahead of the images in the default search-return-order. Thus, it is possible that a significant number of the sales being made are of images belonging to contributors from Getty Images, not iStock. These would not show up in my numbers because I am not tracking any of the Getty Images contributors. Thus I may be missing a significant percentage of sales.
Rather than using the default “Best Match” search-return-order many customers organize their searches by “Most Popular.” When they do that the long time iStock contributors have a definite advantage in getting their images seen and used.
New Contributors May Be Selling Better
Nearly all the contributors I track began working with iStock before 2009. As a result they have built up large image collections in proportion to their numbers. Combined this group has 2,255,531 images in the iStock collection or about 10% of its total. Many of these people continue to produce large numbers of new images annually.
Nevertheless, a few of the newer contributors may be giving these old timers a lot of competition. A significant percentage of total downloads may belong to them.