Alamy's Q1 Figures . . .

Stock Asylum Staff Report
April 17, 2007

For the first time since Alamy started reporting rudimentary sales figures, individual photographers have surpassed stock distributors as the source of most of the company's sales revenue.

Alamy reported on this date that images supplied by photographers accounted for 51 percent of its total revenue during the first quarter of this year, while images supplied by distributors accounted for 49 percent of total revenue.

During the last quarter of 2006, the numbers were reversed with distributor-supplied images accounting for 51 percent of Alamy revenue. During the first half of 2004, the first period for which Alamy supplied figures, individual photographers as a group accounted for just 33 percent of all Alamy revenue.

Alamy does not provide the kind of sales figures that publicly-held companies are required to publish, but the British stock distributor does offer carefully-chosen numbers that provide some insight into its sales.

The company now has some 8.32 million images online, making it one of the largest image libraries in the world.

And it is adding new imagery at a brisk clip. During the first quarter of this year, photographers and distributors uploaded 920,952 images to the Alamy web site. Of that figure, 3,107 photographers uploaded 537,715 images and 183 distributors added 383,237 images. The majority of images, 652,965 were rights-managed, with the remaining 267,987 royalty-free.

Rights-managed sales accounted for 66 percent of Alamy's revenue and 73 percent of all image licenses during the first quarter, with royalty-free sales producing the remaining 34 percent of revenue and 27 percent of image licenses.

The percentage of royalty-free sales has been declining steadily for Alamy since the first half of 2004 when royalty-free accounted for 47 percent of revenue and 53 percent of all sales.

The change may be partly due to the fact that in early 2004 the average price for a rights-managed image from Alamy was considerably higher than the average price of a royalty-free image. During the first half of 2004, an average rights-managed image cost $183, compared to the $139 price tag of an average royalty-free image.

In the most recent quarter, an average rights-managed image from Alamy sold for $155, compared to $222 for an average royalty-free license.

The percentage of revenue from editorial sales reached a new high during the recent period, with 73 percent of Alamy's revenue coming from editorial clients.

However, the price charged for a rights-managed commercial license jumped to $378 during the latest quarter. In the previous quarter, an average rights-managed commercial image cost $332, which was the lowest figure ever reported by Alamy in the category.

The average rights-managed editorial sale fell $2 from the previous quarter to $130. The price for an average editorial image from Alamy has remained fairly constant since early 2004, ranging from $122 to $141.

The Alamy web site is at: http://www.alamy.com.

To download the current Alamy statement, click here.

To download an earlier statement with 2004 figures, click here.