News
Alamy releases 1Q06 stats
Each quarter, the Oxford, England, based stock photo portal, Alamy, releases an interesting set of statistics about their image library and their sales. As a privately held company, Alamy does not release sales or profit figures. But the figures they do release show certain measures of progress at the company and, to the extent we believe some of the figures reflect wider trends, shed some light on conditions in the industry in general.
When looking at Alamy's numbers, we should bear in mind that the company, by its own report, generates 73% of its revenue from editorial licenses and 23% from commercial licenses. This happens to represent the company's highest quarterly ratio of editorial to commercial sales having grown from less than 2:1 in 2005 to nearly 2.7:1 in the first quarter of this year. We should view average price figures, then, in the context of a predominantly and increasingly editorial client base.
In this light, the news is not good for editorial RM shooters. Alamy’s average RM license fee has dropped from $182 in the 3rd quarter of 2005 to just $155 in the 1st quarter of 2007. During that same period, however, RF prices have climbed from $201 to $222 per image license. One wonders whether, in the editorial realm, the negotiability of RM prices works in the photographer’s disfavor. Editorial clients accept set RF prices as posted but show a willingness to haggle over RM prices.
Other curiosities emerge from Alamy’s numbers. For example, in the most recent quarter, RM licenses paid by credit card averaged $240 while RM licenses paid on account averaged only $149 indicating that clients with accounts at Alamy get significant discounts. RF sales show less of a discrepancy from $246 for credit card licenses to $211 for account licenses (lending credence to our willingness-to-haggle theory.) These figures become even more intriguing when one considers the proportions of account sales to credit card sales over-all of 87% and 13%, respectively. Alamy would do well to find a way to bring their account prices up to their credit card price levels.
Finally, the company’s 1st quarter stats show that Alamy continues to draw huge numbers of new images from both individual photographers and agencies. The number of individual photographers submitting images reached 3,107 in the quarter compared to just over 2,000 two years ago. We have written in this column about a number of companies whose business models and technology help photographers by-pass the big agencies and reach clients directly while sacrificing less of the revenue to a go-between. Alamy remains a leader among them, especially for those photographers going after the editorial market.
Web: www.alamy.com
Posted in: Alamy, News, Photographers, Stock Art Buyers, Stock Photo Companies
