In addition to having amassed 4 million images, Dreamstime has announced it has passed the more important milestone of 1 million registered buyers. According to the company, this achievement makes Dreamstime the second leading agency in the number of customers. Getty-owned iStockphoto, which was alluded to but not identified in the Dreamstime statement, is recognized as the top buyer destination.
In addition to its own Web site, which supports eight languages, Dreamstime distributes content through a number of partners, including BrightQube and Picfindr. The company has nearly 50,000 contributing photographers, including longtime stock photographers and agencies such as Ron Chapple’s iofoto and U.K.-based Monkey Business Images. Chapple describes Dreamstime as one of his top producers. Mark Butler of Monkey Business says the production company has also seen excellent sales of its lifestyle, business and food imagery to both professional and consumer buyers.
Dreamstime has been recognized as among the handful of top microstock companies for a number of years, and CEO and co-founder Serban Enache thinks it is positioned for further growth—perhaps better positioned that its competitors, because it does not have “the boundaries of the classic, corporate-designed business structure of other agencies.” Enache said the company is destined to become the only agency that has a true balance of images and buyers.