Recently, when Alamy reported estimated 2007 revenues of $28 million, I speculated they were the fourth-largest seller of stock images in the world after Getty, Corbis and Jupiterimages. New information about Japan's amanaimages places them in fourth place and moves Alamy, in my opinion, to fifth. There are a few other large producer/distributors about the size of Alamy, that do not make their revenues public, but I believe they all generate less from the licensing of stock images than Alamy.
amana, inc has two separate lines of business. amanaimages licenses rights to stock photography. In 2006, it generated approximately $38,101,070 and is on track for about 16% growth in 2007. The second line of business is for visual content planning and production, including assignment photography. It generated approximately $71,522,953 in 2006 and is on track for about 33% growth in 2007. Gross revenue for the entire company in 2006 was $109,624,023.
In the last two years, amana inc. has acquired a number of independent stock photo operations in Japan. These include: Neo Vision, acquired in October 2005; Orion Press in December 2005 and Sekaibunka Photo, whose name was changed to Sebun, in January 2006. In June 2006, amana.inc acquired 75% of the aiwest shares; in August 2006, Orion bought the stock-photo business portion of Imperial Press Japan (IPJ) and in December 2006, amana inc. acquired 98% of Digital Archive Japan.
In January 2007, amanaimages was started after integrating Orion, Sebun Photo and the stock photography division of amana inc. in the new division.