MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: williamju on October 12, 2011, 02:54
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its revenue is around $400 million this year, I imagine all the rest of iStock competitors summed up may just reach this figure, so iStock take at least 40% of micrstock market.
The figure is from microstockdiary:
iStockphoto‘s Dittmar Frohman presented on the Past, Present and Future of microstock. Despite explaining how he couldn’t provide any numbers, a few interesting ones were mentioned. Most interestingly were the weekly royalty payout amount now up to $1.9million,
1.9 x 52 x 4(royalty from 15% - 45%, I used 4 here) = $400million
Market estimation figure is from a owner of stock photo agency.
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Sorry but it could be one Billion a week, doesnt do us the slightest bit of favour, in fact it makes certain actions even worse.
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It's largely guesswork but if you take account of the 30%+ of earnings that most independents have reported getting from iStock and then add on the slice that goes to exclusives it is not improbable that it has 40% of the market. Whether it will be able to hang on to that share is another question.
If its policies are costing it customers, then the potential for % growth at other agencies becomes considerable, even without pulling in people who have not used microstock before.
How does the $1.9mn a week compare with what Kelly T said a couple of years back? Can anyone remember?
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I don't think we have enough data to work out the overall size of the market and the share istock have. What does seem apparent is that there are lots of independents and a good proportion of exclusive contributors that have seen declines in their istock earnings. At the same time, Shutterstock has been doing very well.
So even if istock is the true leader in terms of revenue, it looks like that is likely to change in the future. When I first started on the internet, Yahoo was much bigger than Google but look how that worked out. There might still be time for istock to cling on to their No.1 spot but it looks unlikely. Whoever is making the decisions there has acted like they don't have any real competitors. Ebay can do that because they don't appear to have any big competition. Istock really need to change strategy or it looks like their rivals are going to take a huge chunk of their revenue in years to come.
Fotolia seem to be using a similar strategy to istock and they also appear to be in decline, relative to their rivals. Can these big sites turn it around or are we going to see what's happened in many internet based industries, a big change in the market leaders?
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Most interestingly were the weekly royalty payout amount now up to $1.9million,
I'm sure I remember some time ago a weekly payout figure of $2million being mentioned so this figure is no surprise.
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http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9907570-39.html (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9907570-39.html)
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[url]http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9907570-39.html[/url] ([url]http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9907570-39.html[/url])
That's three and a half years old, Sean. Kelly said something when the credits scheme was announced (it might have been the famous "A Bridge Too Far" speech).
Also, remember istock payouts will include Thinkstock and Getty partner sales as well as pure IS sales, which will distort things somewhat (about a third of my IS commissions are from the PP).
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Back in 2008 they were paying 1.1 million weekly to contributors. Now, 1.9, and this is from a lower percentage because of royalty changes last year. I see room for a rotalty increase.
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From Kelly on Sep 8, 2010:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=252322 (http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=252322)
But, we expect to see our total royalty payout increase by more than 30% next year, from $1.7-million per week to well over $2-million per week. Make no mistake, the total amount of money iStock contributors are making is going up.
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The overall stock industry is between $4 billion and $5 billion
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its revenue is around $400 million this year, I imagine all the rest of iStock competitors summed up may just reach this figure, so iStock take at least 40% of micrstock market.
The figure is from microstockdiary:
iStockphoto‘s Dittmar Frohman presented on the Past, Present and Future of microstock. Despite explaining how he couldn’t provide any numbers, a few interesting ones were mentioned. Most interestingly were the weekly royalty payout amount now up to $1.9million,
1.9 x 52 x 4(royalty from 15% - 45%, I used 4 here) = $400million
Market estimation figure is from a owner of stock photo agency.
link to the article? Those might just be past numbers even if just several months old, considering how istock seems to be sinking very recently.
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I knew it was old. I was just posting for comparison...
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So the target was $2.3 million a week this year and they have made only 10% growth from the 1.7mn last year, if the figures being chucked around are correct. The projected 30% growth became 10% growth.
I don't believe there are any accurate estimates of the value of the "overall stock industry". As I recall, the figure that supporters of the trad business like to quote as showing that there has been no growth in spending due to micros are rigged to exclude earnings from micros from the calculation.
(edit to correct figures)
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I wish we got Stats more often.
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I wish we got Stats more often.
We would if they were good :-|
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Think about some of the accounting games that could be going on - we'll never know, I realize, but this seems plausible.
Getty is siphoning off content from iStock for its "upstream" and "downstream" sites. Costs related to acquiring that content - a submission system, inspection, etc. - all lie with iStock. Revenue at the Getty sites on either side comes with very few of the costs. When iStock's profitability isn't what it should be, Getty insists that they cut commissions to make the business look better, all the while pocketing its low-cost revenue from the other sites.
None of this would matter to contributors if royalty rates were the same across the board, but they aren't. And as revenue to iStock contributors now means RC if it's from iStock.com but not if it's from an upstream or downstream site, payout figures for iStock contributors that blend all three numbers are highly misleading.
Scum.
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I think sharing how much is being paid out to the artists would be a good way to win trust back and also give the artist a way to gauge the attractiveness of an agency. Of course there would be seasonal fluctuations, but if istock gave us this number every week, it would set an important example.
And since it doesn´t tell us anything about total turnover or earnings of the company, it wouldn´t be information their competitors can do much about.
And if we see that traffic stats drop significantly (on alexa, compete) but money paid out to artists is unaffected or even goes up, this would help us put the traffic stats in perspective.
Because at the moment the traffic stats are the only info the artists have to get an idea of the size of an agency.
Obviously this kind of transparency would put pressure on the management to work on business growth, but the pressure from the artists can´t be any worse, than the pressure from their boss or the company owners.
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I think sharing how much is being paid out to the artists would be a good way to win trust back and also give the artist a way to gauge the attractiveness of an agency. Of course there would be seasonal fluctuations, but if istock gave us this number every week, it would set an important example.
And since it doesn´t tell us anything about total turnover or earnings of the company, it wouldn´t be information their competitors can do much about.
And if we see that traffic stats drop significantly (on alexa, compete) but money paid out to artists is unaffected or even goes up, this would help us put the traffic stats in perspective.
Because at the moment the traffic stats are the only info the artists have to get an idea of the size of an agency.
Obviously this kind of transparency would put pressure on the management to work on business growth, but the pressure from the artists can´t be any worse, than the pressure from their boss or the company owners.
Yeah I agree it would be a good idea - even monthly would be nice.
The alternative is to get enough artists contributing stats to something like microstockcharts.com - maybe Lee or Amos could give us an update on where this site is upto?
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I think sharing how much is being paid out to the artists would be a good...
we already know that, it's about 20%, or less for most of them...
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When Kelly left his position he mentioned many stats, however sales figures and market share numbers were left out of the post. Two years ago he gave specifics on numbers. Why the change? Istock had a 70% market share before Getty. Now, I am not sure its above 50%.