Alamy sales for the 2009 were $22,864,000, down 27% from 2008. Fourth quarter sales were down less than 2% compared to the third quarter of 2009 and were down 14% compared to the fourth quarter 2008. British pound and Euro sales were up slightly compared to the third quarter of
2009, but U.S. dollar sales were down 12% compared to Q3 2009 and 22% compared to Q4 2008.
| Revenue Information |
Q1 2009 |
Q2 2009 |
Q3 2009 |
Q4 2009 |
| Revenue USD (000's) |
$2,351 |
$2,070 |
$2,109 |
$1,855 |
| Revenue Euro (000's) |
565 |
530 |
604 |
615 |
| Revenue GBP (000's) |
1,887 |
1,795 |
1,704 |
1,800 |
Table 1 shows Alamy sales in the original transaction currencies of U.S. Dollars, Euros and British Pounds. Table 2 converts the original currencies to U.S. Dollars based on the March 31, June 30, September 30 and December 31 exchange rates.
| |
Q1 2008 |
Q2 2002 |
Q3 2008 |
Q4 2008 |
Q1 2009 |
Q2 2009 |
Q3 2009 |
Q4 2009 |
|
| U.S. Dollars |
$2,626 |
$2,937 |
$2,750 |
$2,390 |
$2,351 |
$2,070 |
$2,109 |
$1,855 |
|
| Euros |
$1,162 |
$1,225 |
$1,035 |
$1,017 |
$746 |
$745 |
$881 |
$881 |
|
| British Pounds |
$4,146 |
$4,368 |
$4,433 |
$3,091 |
$2,682 |
$2,965 |
$2,713 |
$2,866 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Dollar Totals |
$7,934 |
$8,530 |
$8,218 |
$6,498 |
$5,779 |
$5,780 |
$5,703 |
$5,602 |
|
The average price of a rights-managed image was $116, down $2 from the previous quarter and but up from a low of $105 in the first half of 2009. The average price of a royalty-free image was $168, down from $177 in Q3.
The average price of a rights-managed image licensed for editorial use was $100, down 3% from Q3 2009, but far better than the $93 in Q2. The average price of a right-managed commercial image was $298 and on a steady pace upward after hitting a low of $234 in Q1 2009. However, the average price for right-managed commercial images is still a long way from the high of $384 in Q3 2008. The revenue from commercial sales in Q4 was about $1,234,440 and editorial sales totaled about $4,369,560.
Of the $5,602,000 in revenue for Q4, $1,344,480 was for royalty-free sales and $4,257,520 for right-managed sales. Based on figures provided by Alamy approximately 8,002 RF images were licensed for use in Q4. Of the RM images, 3,143 were licensed for commercial use and 33,209 for editorial use for a total of 44,354 images licensed in the quarter.
As of February 23, 2010 Alamy had over 18 million images available for licensing on its site. This means that of all the images available for licensing on Alamy something less than 1% are licensed at least once annually.
On average, the photographer who has 100 rights-managed images on Alamy can expect to license rights to one in the year for about $116 and receive a royalty of 60% of that. Nevertheless, Alamy has reported that their three top selling contributors in 2009 received the following rounded commissions:
- £130,000 ($210,000)
- £90,000 ($150,000)
- £75,000 ($120,000)
They also confirmed these three were a “mixture” of agencies and individual photographers. We suspect the top two were agencies and an individual photographer received $120,000.