I was recently asked if I had any statistics on the number of unique RM/RF images available for commercial licensing.
Last September Justin Brinson said he had more than 500,000,000 unique RM and traditional RF images (no microstock) on his
PicturEngine platform. These images were provided by 64 different agencies and a number of individual photographers. Brinson has combined these collections into one database and eliminated duplicates. He has continued to add images and has a somewhat higher number now.
In the chart below I have recorded the numbers of images that some major distributors say they have. When no total number was reported on their web site, I estimated the total based on the number of people images I found in the collections. Not counting Getty’s Editorial division this comes to 435,057,182 many of these images are in multiple collections. I estimate that there may be another 200,000,000 images in all the other smaller collections around the world making a total in the neighborhood of 635,057,182 Creative images. This does not account for all the purely editorial images.
Sales
I have divided sales into 4 different types – Subscription, Microstock Single Images, Traditional RF and Rights Managed. I think the total images licensed during 2016 was about 317 million with 76% of them licensed via subscriptions. A little over half of 1% of them were RM and many of those images were licensed at very low prices - in some cases less than Microstock single image prices.
I estimate the gross revenue generated from these sales, worldwide, was about 1.36 Billion. This includes Creative photos and illustration, but does not include Editorial or Video sales. If we add in the Editorial and Video revenue, I think gross sales for the industry was about $2.3 Billion.
It is interesting to consider that if there were 635,057,182 Creative Images available, and they generated $1.36 billion in 2016, the average image generated about $2.14 in gross revenue.
| |
Images In |
|
People
|
| |
Collection |
Estimate |
Images |
| Shutterstock |
119,000,000 |
|
19,750,154 |
| Getty Creative |
17,736,844 |
|
4,942,200 |
| Getty editorial |
88,635,146 |
|
27,076,843 |
| iStock |
60,000,000 |
Estimate |
12,807,872 |
| Alamy |
96,378,179 |
|
13,419,173 |
| AdobeStock/Fotolia |
71,942,159 |
|
9,681,973 |
| Dreamstime |
50,000,000 |
Estimate |
7,252,861 |
| Masterfile |
20,000,000 |
Estimate |
3,211,920 |
| Other |
200,000,000 |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
723,692,328 |
|
98,142,996 |
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| Rough |
Images Licensed |
Average |
Gross Revenue |
| Sales Breakout |
In 2016 |
Price |
Generated |
| Subscription |
240,000,000 |
$1.25 |
$275,000,000 |
| Microstock Single Image |
70,000,000 |
$8.00 |
$560,000,000 |
| Traditional RF |
5,000,000 |
$45.00 |
$225,000,000 |
| Rights Managed |
2,000,000 |
$150.00 |
$300,000,000 |
| |
|
|
|
| |
317,000,000 |
|
1,360,000,000 |