At this Sunday afternoon, after uploaded several photos to Getty Images, ShutterStock and Alamy, and before the important match between Beijing Basketball Team vs. Xinjiang, I decided to write something about China stock photo market especially for stock photographers outside of China, to help you understand the market here, and to maybe help me understnad more of you.

I'm drafting and below points come to my mind so far:

• stock photo market in China
• Major players of this market
• Whose works are selling here
• demands and best selling
• local photographers
• piracy

I'll finish my words on my blog at http://www.tukusheying.com/info/es_t_20160221050618.html and then post it here.  You're welcome to reply in this thread with any topics or viewpoints, I'll try to include or discuss it in my words as well, thank you.

VCG (Visual China Group), a public stock photo agency, and also the sole distributor of Getty Images in mainland China, will acquire Corbis

http://www.tukusheying.com/info/es_t_20160122063839.html

the file just disclosed in stock exchange website and I made the screen snapshot as shown in above link

To better understand China stock photo market, I start this public free survey today.

And so far in 3 hours there are 53 submission collected.

Some facts are like:

• 2013 income: ranges from 0 to above USD90,000
• 2013 new online content: ranges from 0 - above 5,000
• working hours per day: 0 - above 8 hours

If you can understand Chinese, you are welcome to take this survey at http://www.wenjuan.com/s/bUb6Nb

You will see the survey result right after you finish it.

If you can NOT understand Chinese, please do NOT take it, I will post the result around the end of this month.

Thank you.

They go public through buying a shell -- ticker symbol is 000681, listed in Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Getty owns 20% of its share.

FYI I posted some related information in my website(Chinese): http://www.tukusheying.com/info/es_t_20130817025441.html

will soon be online at
http://www.tukusheying.com/info/es_t_20130506102659.html

my latest interview to Lee Torrens -- the owner of MicrostockDiaries   

as well as the one to Jon Oringer

data:

• http://www.microstockdiaries.com/stockinrussia-2011-live.html
• http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/01/us-shutterstock-ipo-idUSBRE8400PC20120501
• http://www.pehub.com/141056/hellman-friedman-with-380-mln-dividend-from-getty-images-makes-back-nearly-all-of-its-money/

so, the fact is

• ShutterStock: $100 million in revenue in 2011
• Getty Images: revenues of about $945 million through the 12 months ended December 2011 (I believe this included iStockPhoto contribution

And according to the figures in microstockdiaries:

iStockphoto�s Dittmar Frohman presented on the..... Most interestingly were the weekly royalty payout amount now up to $1.9million

Let's say the average royalty percentage is around 30%, and the lowest and highest are 15% and 45%

30%:  $1.9million x 3.3 x 52 = $326 million
15%:  $1.9million x 6.6 x 52 = $652 million
45%:  $1.9million x 2.2 x 52 = $217 million

See, the sales force, or, the sales POWER of iStockPhoto is at least double than ShutterStock.

Correct me if I am wrong, and any insight input is welcomed.

PS. welcome ads in my website (www.tukusheying.com)   

It was made last year end, translated into Chinese

http://www.tukusheying.com/info/es_t_20111201110330.html

In my recent interview to Alan Capel, Head of Content of Alamy, one question is
what's highest price a photo has alamy ever sold.

Alan said: We can�t show you but we have sold one image for over $100,000.

Does anybody know the photo? Any clue where can I see it? Just for curiosity,
and I won't post it out if you let me know, thank you!

My website is in Chinese, the interview can be seen at
http://www.tukusheying.com/info/es_t_20120406111109.html

Now I know who is the No.2 of the world, I just did an interview with Yuri, he told me the No.2 is Andres Rodriguez.

This is just a follow up to the question I asked here a few months ago, thank you everybody who was involved, and I hope you agree. 

 

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.

Just curious about this, anyone know the answer?

Alamy pays contributors better than other agencies, that's the No.1 reason we should support Alamy.

the No.2 reason is, via Alamy, you can sell your micro images in macro sites.

I was rejected to be a constributor of Inmagine months ago, they said they do not accept micro images.

And I happen to chat with an Inmagine customer service girl, who showed me a few their recent sales, I believe a lot of photographers can shoot that kind of photo, it's just a man's portrait, the price is over USD100.

So I came up with the concept: a lot of micro contributors are good in technique, but just don't know how to get into macro world to earn big dollar.

Until yesterday, I happen to found there are a lot of Alamy images in Inmagine.

So you know the idea now: you can have your micro images both in micro and macro, just via Alamy.

And I even found panthermedia images in agestockphoto...