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Getty Images history
Getty Images company history timeline
In 1995, Mark Getty and chief executive officer Jonathan Klein co-founded Getty Investments LLC in London.
In April 1996, the company purchased Hulton Deutsch, one of the world's largest privately owned collections of archival photography.
Stock Offering in 1996 Enables Future Acquisitions
By the end of 1996--the first full year of operation--Getty's sales totaled $85 million and its net income stood at $2.7 million.
1996:Company debuts on the NASDAQ Exchange.
In September 1997, Getty Communications, as it was called at the time, merged with PhotoDisc, Inc. to form Getty Images.
The company's annual financial totals would increase significantly as new collections were added and as new segments of the visual content market were penetrated, which the company accomplished in November 1997 when it made its first foray into photojournalism.
Toward this end, the company made rapid progress in 1997, shouldering past rivals by maintaining its posture as an aggressive acquirer.
1997:The launch of 'Hulton Getty On-Line' ushers company into electronic commerce.
In February 1998, the company acquired Allsport plc., a sports photography agency whose photographers captured images from sports events throughout the world.
Initially, several thousand of the 15 million images within the collection were put on display, the first stage of a plan that called for 500,000 archival images to be online by the end of 1998.
In March 1999, Getty announced it was relocating its headquarters from London to the United States, where the majority of the company's revenue was collected.
1999:The Image Bank is acquired for $183 million.
In April 2003, Getty Images entered into a partnership with Agence France-Presse (AFP) to market each other's images.
The company relocated to Seattle two years later and expanded in the United States, reaching 2,000 employees by 2006.
Getty Images acquired the Michael Ochs Archives in February 2007.
In 2008, the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman (H&F) acquired Getty Images for $2.4 billion.
The company moved to its current headquarters, in the Union Station office complex in Seattle's International District, in 2011.
In 2012, H&F put Getty up for sale.
In 2015, Jonathan Klein became the company's chairman and Dawn Airey was hired as chief executive officer (CEO) of Getty Images.
Airey remained in the role until 31 December 2018, at which time she became a non-executive director member of its board.
The company was acquired by the Getty family in 2018.
In 2019, Getty Images introduced Market Freeze, simplifying exclusivity of rights-managed images.
Later that year, it announced that due to customers' needs changing, it plans to phase out rights-managed imagery by 2020 in favor of royalty-free images.
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Getty Images competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Times | 1881 | $780.0M | 2,052 | 3 |
| TED | 1984 | $66.2M | 30 | 7 |
| Business Insider | 2007 | $290.0M | 9,615 | 8 |
| New York Magazine | 1968 | $78.5M | 200 | - |
| HuffPost | 2005 | $40.0M | 1,898 | - |
| Change.org | 2007 | $22.0M | 431 | - |
| Bloomberg | 1981 | $10.0B | 20,000 | 715 |
| eBay | 1995 | $10.3B | 13,300 | 235 |
| BuzzFeed | 2006 | $189.9M | 1,700 | 11 |
| Washington Plaza Hot | - | $310.0M | 3,347 | - |
Getty Images history FAQs
Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of Getty Images, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about Getty Images. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at Getty Images. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by Getty Images. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of Getty Images and its employees or that of Zippia.
Getty Images may also be known as or be related to Getty Images, Getty Images Inc and Getty Images, Inc.