The appointment of Gary Shenk to the position of CEO at Corbis, the unfortunate PR nightmare at photolibrary (which is still playing itself out,) and the astronomical growth in the number of micro-stock images purchased each quarter and the continuing debate over its effect on the so-called traditional parts of the business also stand out as important developments in our relatively small industry.

But to this writer, the most significant and perhaps most disturbing trend in the stock photo industry in 2007 lies in the poor performance of the stock prices of the two publicly traded companies in the business; Getty Images and Jupiterimages. Consider the following share price figures for the two companies in 2007:

Company          High       Low       12/31/07 close

Getty               $57.28    $26.75  $29.00
Jupiter             $10.48    $  3.48  $  3.82

Both companies’ share prices hit their highs in February, when the acquisition talks between the two were still active.  These numbers show, by the estimation of Wall Street, at least, Getty and Jupiter have lost 50% and 60%, respectively, of their values over the last ten months.  To put the numbers another way, at its peak price in ’07, Wall Street valued Getty at $3.4billion, but by the end of the year, just over $1.7billion.  For Jupiter, the market capitalization went from $377million to $137million over the same period.  Taken a step further, these numbers mean that both Getty and Jupiter would have to at least double their values, in the eyes of investors, in order to return to the peak values they achieved in 2007. 

The two companies’ roughly parallel share performances do not signify a core similarity between their businesses.  Yes, both are primarily engaged in licensing stock content, but the composition of their content collections and their strategies and approaches to the challenges they face diverge in important ways.   Both companies have scored disappointing quarterly results during the year, which obviously lead to the declining share prices.  Nonetheless, to the extent one considers the stock prices of the number one and number three companies in the business (Corbis, the presumed number two, is a private company) to be indicators of the health of the industry over-all, these numbers paint a troubling picture.

One might ask whether it’s fair to take these share price trends as a barometer for the rest of the industry, which is almost entirely privately held.  Some companies, (reportedly Veer, for example, among others) have fared well in these turbulent times.  Despite such exceptions, in this writer’s view, the difficulties Getty and Jupiter have had over the last several quarters are symptoms of the struggle many in the industry face in keeping pace with the changes brought about by new technologies and new business models.  The share prices indicate we’re in the midst of an industry shake-out that will continue through 2008 and leave the stock photo industry landscape looking, yet again, very different a year from now.