Corbis Announces 2006 Revenues of $251M

Corbis today announced that its total revenues for 2006 exceeded $251 million, up from $228 million in 2005.

The company also said it would be launching its first microstock offering during the second quarter of 2007.

"2006 was a significant year for Corbis as we began reaping the benefits of past strategic investments to exceed our cash flow targets," Corbis CEO Steve Davis said in a statement. Those strategic investments included expanding into Asia, where the company opened an office in Beijing and partnered with IndiaPicture.com, and Australia, where it acquired Australian Picture Library. The company also added nearly 500,000 new images to its library and began offering content from collections such as Playboy, the Smithsonian Institution and Dick Clark Productions.

As a privately held company, Corbis, which is owned by Bill Gates, is not required to disclose its earnings. In the past few years, however, it has chosen to do so, and this year the company may have had extra motivation: its 11 percent increase in revenue over last year is higher than even powerhouse Getty Images, which saw approximately a 10 percent increase in revenue. Still, the $251 million was not enough to bring Corbis into the black; the company has not turned a yearly profit in its history.

Below is an outline of both Corbis's and Getty's revenues for the past few years (in millions).

Year	Corbis	Getty
2006	$251	$807
2005	$228	$733.7
2004	$170.4	$622.4
2003	$140	$523.2
2002	$115	$463
2001	$128	$451
2001	$135.7	$484.8

--Andrew Shafer