Stock images are essential components for a wide range of products, services, media, and other applications. From news publications to website design to advertising and beyond, demand for stock assets is strong across industries. With so many companies looking for stock photos and other assets, numerous stock image sites have developed to take advantage of the market.
The global stock images market is on the rise
Technavio predicts that the global stock images market will grow at a healthy CAGR of over 8% between 2020 and 2024, which translates to an increase in value of more than $1.8 billion. North America leads the global market, accounting for nearly half of the industry’s growth, but APAC and MEA are expected to be the fastest-growing regions over the next few years. Digital and social media marketing will contribute significantly to market demand as companies take advantage of the substantial reach offered by these platforms to advertise their products and services. But which stock image sites are currently leading the global market?
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Adobe
Founded in 1982 and with more than 22,000 employees around the world, Adobe is well known for its PDF programs and its creative suite that includes Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and many other applications. Adobe Stock is the company’s stock image service, and it offers high-resolution, royalty-free images for users to license for their designs. These images can be accessed and used directly from Adobe’s desktop applications.
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Depositphotos
Depositphotos offers a collection of stock photos, graphics, vectors, and videos to customers around the world. Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Florida, the company has surpassed 157 million files and serves customers in 192 countries. The company also produces Crello, a graphic design tool.
Dreamstime
Dreamstime is a community-based collection of royalty-free photos, stock photography, illustrations, and vectors. The site also offers audio clips, royalty-free music, and video clips. Established in 2000, the company has grown to include 130 million stock photos, with over 29 million users and 600,000 photographers around the world. Dreamstime offers time-based subscription plans as well as individual downloads.
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Envato
Founded in 2006, this Melbourne-based digital assets site offers stock photos and video, music, graphic templates, and web templates. The company runs Envato Market, where users can buy and sell a variety of digital assets, as well as its subscription service Envato Elements. It also offers the Milkshake website builder, the Placeit template tool for graphic design, and Mixkit and Twenty20 for stock photos, footage, and other assets.
Getty Images
Getty Images is one of the most well-known stock image sites, supplying photographs and other assets to news organizations, film and television, books, and more. The company was founded in 1995, but its Hulton Archive contains images dating back centuries and contains over 90 million pictures. Getty Images and its budget site iStock contain millions of photos, illustrations, videos, and audio tracks, including coverage of thousands of events from around the world.
Inmagine
Founded in 2000, Inmagine offers a variety of resources, including images, vectors, audio, video, design elements and templates, and more. The company also boasts a set of AI-powered tools to provide design suggestions based on criteria such as style, font, color, and content. The resulting suggestions can be used as the groundwork for a design or even as the finished product.
PIXTA
PIXTA offers a collection of over 50 million royalty-free stock photos, illustrations, and videos provided by more than 300,000 contributors. The company was founded in 2005 and is based in Tokyo, and has become one of the largest stock image sites in Japan. PIXTA’s archives include work from stock photo agencies; professional photographers, videographers, and illustrators; and amateur creators.
Pond5
Pond5 provides royalty-free stock video along with integrations for major video-editing software. Its collection includes over 17 million video clips, as well as music, sound effects, images, and more. The New York-based stock image site has over 60,000 contributing artists.
Reuters
Reuters covers a wide range of daily news topics, providing multimedia content to a wide range of organizations and partnering with organizations such as National Geographic and Variety. Reuters Pictures offers a collection of over 13 million images, including some that are more than 100 years old. The company offers upwards of 1,600 images per day by 600 photographers from around the world.
Shutterstock
Based in New York with customers and contributors from around the world, Shutterstock boasts a collection of over 300 million royalty-free photos, illustrations, and vectors, along with video clips, music tracks, and other assets. The company offers plans to suit individuals, teams, and enterprises. Shutterstock’s brands include Bigstock, Offset, PremiumBeat, Rex Features and Shutterstock Custom.
Technavio’s market research report offers insights such as:
- CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024
- Detailed information on factors that will accelerate the growth of the stock images market during the next five years
- Precise estimation of the global stock images market size and its contribution to the parent market
- Accurate predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior
- The growth of the stock images industry across APAC, Europe, MEA, North America, and South America
- A thorough analysis of the market’s competitive landscape and detailed information on stock image sites
- Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of stock images vendors
Learn more about the global stock images industry with Technavio’s market research report. Try a free sample today!
