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Stock photo Market : A mid-summer analysis

From Paul Melcher

As the flow of news coming out of the stock photo industry major – and not so major – players keep on pushing one press release after the other, it is always good to take a step back and analyze trends.

It’s been a hectic first six months of 2016 and if its any indication, the rest of the year will probably be as eventful. The year started with what will probably be the biggest news of the year. Corbis sold to VCG and Getty Images inheriting worldwide sales, outside of China.  For VCG, a great boost to its stock price, for Getty, not only a competitor out of the market but millions of additional photos to license.  But, if the latest  numbers are any indication, it appears that a big chunk of Corbis clients did not follow the collection to Getty but instead, migrated to Shutterstock. In its latest quarterly report, Jon Oringer, CEO, stated : ” We added more first-time users than ever before during the second quarter”. While he doesn’t specify the source, and it’s obvious that not all are ex-Corbis clients, it is also not a coincidence that both events happened at the same time. Read more