Getty: iStockphoto Sales Could Total $262M In 2012


March 28, 2008

By Daryl Lang

Getty Images projects that its iStockphoto division will more than double in size by 2012, reaching $262 million in annual sales.

At the same time, traditional royalty-free and rights-managed stock licensing is expected to shrink by a quarter, down from more than half of Getty's revenues to just 29 percent in 2012.

Getty made these projections public in a raft of documents filed Thursday as part of its agreement to be sold to a private equity firm. Getty Images management has trumpeted the growth of iStockphoto before, but has never provided specific financial data until now.

IStockphoto, the low-priced stock imagery site that sells royalty-free image licenses for a few dollars each, has already shown tremendous growth. It earned $22 million in 2006 and $72 million in 2007, according to figures in a document dated February 7.

A November 2007 report projected that iStockphoto will earn $122 million this year and $262 in 2012.

These figures represent a sea change for stock photography.

If counted separately from Getty Images, iStockphoto would probably be the world's third-largest stock agency this year. (The top two agencies, Getty and Corbis, each generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues. Jupiterimages, generally regarded as third place, reported $108 in annual revenues for 2007.)

Getty acquired iStock in February 2006 for $50 million.

The projections for 2008 and 2012 were part of a November 28, 2007 report prepared by Goldman Sachs using data from Getty management. Here are the detailed numbers from the report:

2008 Estimated Revenue

Creative stills: $461 million (51% of total revenue)
Editorial: $180 million (20%)
iStock: $122 million (14%)
Other: $77 million (9%)
Footage and multimedia: $47 million (5%)
B2B music: $14 million (2%)

2012 Estimated Revenue

Creative stills: $348 million (29%)
Editorial: $289 million (24%)
iStock: $262 million (22%)
Other: $159 million (13%)
Footage and multimedia: $83 million (7%)
B2B music: $46 million (4%)

Very informative! Thanks Hatman

wow, those are some big numbers.

good for us though - it looks like the microstock industry is going to be around for a few years yet!

it is kinda a surprise to me that it will take another 4 years to double in size... seems like that's rather slowing growth if you ask me.... but then again, i guess the exponential growth can't keep up forever.

well when we are talking 262 million, it takes a while to earn double that.  You have to find a person to buy another 100 million pictures or so.  If they had only 1 million in sales then perhaps it wouldn't be so challenging to double sales....