Statistics & Surveys
I’ve examined the number of images in certain keyword categories at
Getty and
iStock. Today, I’ve done a count of the number of Shutterstock images with the same keywords as the other two agencies to see if it is possible to draw any comparisons. I'll take a look at the comparisons of collection size between Getty and Shutterstock. In addition there are some interesting things to be learned when comparing the number of photos with the number of illustrations on the Shutterstock site.
In the
previous story I examined the Getty Image Creative collection, and in particular EyeEm’s contribution to that collection, in and effort to determine what subject matter might be in greatest demand, and thus most needed. iStock offers some interesting insights into the subject because it basically has two separate collections – Signature and Essentials – with imagery at different price points.
If the major stock distributors want to sell more pictures it might be a good idea to give photographers more information about the relative demand for certain subjects in terms of number of images licensed and revenue generated by images with certain keywords. If occurred to me that the fastest growing collection on Gettyimages.com is EyeEm. Currently there are 26,024,940 images in the Getty Creative collection and 4,620,578 or
18% of them have been supplied by EyeEm. A little less than two years ago EyeEM only had 256,152 image in the collection.
I would like to encourage every stock photographer to begin to calculate, on an annual basis, their Return-Per-Image (RPI) for each agency they work with. This is particularly important for those photographers who hope to realize a profit for the time and expense they invest in producing stock images.
Getty has just sent out an email to its customers promoting its Creative Royalty-Free Imagery. When you click on
View All Creative Images you find that there are 16,844,390 images in the Creative RF collection. There are also 6,590,271 "Creative RM" images in the total Creative Collection.
London based,
Technavio has published its 2018 report on the global still images market. The report estimates that the market will grow at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of approximately 8% during the period 2018-2022.
The report is available at a
discounted price of $2,500 and is said to “provide an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook. In addition, it offers an up-to-date analysis of the market concerning the current market scenario, latest drivers, and the overall global environment.”
Recently Alfonso Gutiérrez, CEO of AGE FotoStock told one of my readers that a "professional" stock photo collection in an agency should be returning to its contributors a minimum of $1.00 per-image per-year. The photographer noted that his returns from AGE were way below that number and he wondered whether many photographers are seeing that kind of return.
Shutterstock ought to think about raising prices. Clearly the number of images download is flat and not likely to grow significantly in the future. Just look at the quarterly download numbers for 2016 and 2017. The overall market for stock photographer is not growing. For years Shutterstock got away with taking market share away from Getty. They though that because their downloads were growing that the market was growing. In reality they were just taking customers away from Getty.
I was asked recently, “Kindly tell me how I can determine the market potential of the stock image industry.” Here’s my short answer. Your question doesn’t have an easy answer. I think the annual gross revenue, worldwide, generated by the licensing of stock imagery is about $2.5 billion. This breaks down to approximately $600 million for footage, $400 million for editorial, news oriented images and $1.5 billion for generic still images and illustration. About one-third of the $1.5 billion is for illustration, not photographs.
At the end of 2016 Shutterstock had 190,000 contributors. By May 2017 that number was up to 225,000 and in September when they launched
Shutterstock Custom Content they said they had 250,000 contributors. Presumably the number was even higher at the end of the year.
VisualSteam has released the results of its 5th Annual Survey of Creative Pros on the issue of Stock Image Licensing. The survey was sent to US art buyers, art directors, art producers, creative directors, photo editors and marketing professionals and provides a glimpse into what is driving image licensing today.
According to Statista 1,200 billion photos will be taken worldwide in 2017. Not surprisingly, 85% of them will be taken with Smartphones, 4.7% taken with Tablets and only 10.3% were taken with digital cameras. That works out to about 123,600,000,000 photos taken with digital cameras. A very small percentage of these will be made available available for licensing.
It was recently called to my attention that EyeEm has 3,494,298 images in the Getty Images collection. Add to that the 2,755,731 in the Moment collection (from Flickr photographers) and these two collections represent 29% of the combined RM and RF collections currently on Gettyimages.com, and 41% of the RF collection alone. I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the current number of images each brand has at Getty.
One of the interesting questions raised by the chart in the
previous story and the chart below is the annual revenue each collection might possibly generate. Certain specialized collections may have provided very few images and thus generate much less than the larger collections. However, by using the attached chart brand owners may be able to get a senses of whether their images are selling as well as those of their competitors.
Moody’s Investor Service reports that total Getty Images revenue for the twelve months ended 30 September 2017 was
$836.8 million.
Alamy had a very good year in 2016 with total turnover
up 31% to 19,185,668 £ compared to 14,627,376 £ in 2015. However, much of that percentage growth was due to strong sales in the U.S. and a declining exchange rate in the pound compared to other currencies. Based on the U.S. dollar rate at the end of each year the total turnover 2016 was $23,675,114 compared to $21,569,529 for 2015.
The results of Graphic Design USA’s 31st Annual Stock Visual Reader Survey are now available
here. Ninety-two percent of the respondents use stock photos, 72% use stock illustration and 41% use footage and animation. This is a must read for anyone trying to produce imagery that the market wants.
Shutterstock has reported Q3 2017 revenue of
$141.1 million up $18.0 million, or 14% on a constant currency basis, compared to Q3 2016. The revenue was also up $7.1 million from Q2 2017. Revenue per download averaged $3.23 per image, an 11% increase over Q3 2016. About
27% of revenue, or roughly $38.09 million, was paid out in royalties to contributors.
In reviewing the latest reports from Magna, eMarketer, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and ZenithOptimedia it appears that the global advertising market is expected to generate about $504 billion in 2017, up 3.7% from 2016. The growth in 2016 was +5.9%, but the Olympics and U.S. Elections contributed a lot to that growth. Global advertising growth is expected to re-accelerate to +4.5% in 2018 with the return of even-year events (Football World Cup in Russia, Mid-Term U.S. elections, Winter Olympics in South Korea.)
Assuming you are taking pictures because you want to earn some money from what you produce, it would be very helpful to have some information about which images among the hundreds of millions out there are actually selling, and how frequently.
What’s in demand?
One of the big questions in today’s stock photo industry is the future potential for stock video use. Recently, the Digital Media Licensing Association (DMLA) conducted a webinar on this subject. A video is available
here.
In a comment to my
previous story, Sarah Fix of Blend Images pointed out that technology solutions alone may not provide photographers with the information they need to make the most productive use of their time and resources.
Where are the major producers of stock images located? One might expect then to live in New York, London, Los Angeles and Berlin near where the major customers. We also must not forget San Francisco, Seattle and Calgary. Think again.
From and investors point of view, Getty may have turned the corner. However, this may not benefit image creators, particularly those from North America and the Western Europe. It is my understanding that gross revenue in 2016 was about $840 million, up about 4% from around $808 million in 2015. Until 2016, Getty’s revenue declined steadily for about three years as they struggled to get their prices in line with their major competitor, Shutterstock.
Here is a list of 13 questions agencies should consider asking themselves. They might even want to consider asking their top producing photographers and illustrators questions 3, 4 and 7.