Artmarket.com reports Q3 revenue growth (y-o-y) and announces significant increase in subscription and service prices, deployment of the most advanced version of Artprice.com
PARIS, Nov. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Artmarket.com reports Q3 revenue growth (y-o-y) and announces significant increase in subscription and service prices, deployment of the most advanced version of Artprice.com in mid-December which will lead, among other things, to a change in the economic model with paid advertisers fully integrated into its databases and services, its Artist pages and its Web 3.0 dimension.
In mid-December 2022, Artprice by Artmarket will deploy its new version, the most advanced in its history, that will allow it to provide a much more comprehensive response to customer inquiries and information queries in this digital decade. After a development phase extended by 18 months due to the Covid pandemic, this major revamp has involved all of Artprice’s databases and services.
After a call for tenders at the end of 2019, Artprice by Artmarket selected a team of very high-level and committed external consultants to audit and develop a complete overhaul of Artprice.com, with a solid UI/UX approach (UX and UI respectively stand for User Experience and User Interface). The results of this user-centric approach will be visible in mid-December.
The new website will also boast a new economic model with the inclusion of paying advertisers fully integrated into its databases and services. These advertisers will be primarily the 6,400 auction houses worldwide affiliated with Artprice for more than two decades and which now conduct 98% of their sales online. They will now be able to highlight their future sales in paying advertiser mode, based on the search criteria used by Artprice’s 5.4 million users. The resulting targeting will be extremely relevant.
We note that for over 50 years, the economic model of auction houses has systematically involved advertising costs – announcing details of upcoming sales – that accounted for approximately 34% of their overall costs, regardless of the country or the size of their activity.
Since auctions are now 98% advertised on the Internet, the pressure from Artprice-affiliated auction houses in 2022 to promote their sales for a fee has found the best solution on our new website. It is only logical that auction houses now consider their advertisement of future sales (34% of the cost of the sale) makes more sense on the Internet rather than in the printed press.
In the past, Artprice has always considered online advertising incompatible with its databases in terms of readability and notoriety. It was therefore a major challenge to respond to demand from auction houses for advertising while maintaining Artprice’s core DNA.
In the new roll-out, the 6,400 auction operators will be able to integrate and merge the announcements of their future sales into the entire industrial process of Artprice by Artmarket, along with “pushing” the artists selected as favorites to Artprice’s 5.4 million users (alerts by text messages, RSS, instant messaging, e-mail, My Artists page, etc.).
It is quite possible that the advertising revenue generated by these 6,400 auction houses affiliated with Artprice since 1997 will ultimately exceed our subscription revenue (currently 90% of Artprice’s total revenue). Artprice therefore believes that by responding to a long-standing request from its partner auction houses, the new business model could double its future revenue.
In responding to the numerous and repeated requests from its 6,400 affiliated auction houses around the world to be able to profitably advertise their future sales, Artprice has made every effort to remain faithful to its principle of prioritizing the readability of its databases.
Artmarket.com will be introducing a significant increase in subscriptions and services fees in January 2023 that will generate an increase in future income. As Artmarket.com has been profitable for a decade, the bulk of the additional revenue will translate into additional net income because under the French fiscal regime, we can generate up to 90 million euros p/a without incurring additional tax charges.
The fee increases follow extensive consultation with Artprice by Artmarket customers who will continue to benefit from our databases and services, being well aware that they find essential data in Artprice that they cannot find anywhere else. Our indisputable position as World Leader in Art Market Information since 1997 must now be commercially exploited at its true value. Remember that our databases are continually updated with ultra-detailed and qualified data: well over a million new data logs every year.
According to a consensus of art market professionals, Artprice’s databases are today unquestionably the most comprehensive in the world with nearly 800,000 artists referenced with their biographies, auction results, indices, decision-making support tools, signatures & monograms, information about past and future sales. In total, this adds up to several tens of millions of inter-connected and high value-added data logs, all protected by various intellectual property rights.
Despite the substantial price increase, Artprice by Artmarket’s offer remains by far the best-placed compared with the slowly evolving offer from our competition which offers limited-search annual professional subscriptions (e.g. 150 queries for €350/year, 450 queries for €975/year and, in the event of overrun, €2.45 per search). (Information certified by Court Bailiff in November 2022).
In the world of “unlimited” offers, these offers are quite simply anachronistic. Moreover, the competitions’ offer is based on data regarding only 330,000 artists and from a selection of only 1,600 auction houses, whereas Artprice by Artmarket covers 800,000 artists and 6,400 auction houses, with unlimited subscriptions from €265 to €529/year including a range of indices, decision-making tools and signatures & monograms that is unique in the world. In short, Artprice’s offer will remain highly competitive even after the fee increase and with further margin for additional price rises in the future.
Somewhat counter-intuitively – given the geopolitical and economic context – the global art market is displaying insolent health, with regular auction records being hammered for works from all artistic periods, regardless of the country, during recent sales sessions. And there have been no cancellations of classic and/or prestige cataloged sales for 2022 or 2023.
The major auction houses and investors are well aware that art is a safe-haven investment, as shown by the Artprice100© index, which has clearly outperformed traditional stock market indices. The current period of stock market jitters has channeled new funds and investments into the art market. As the end of the year approaches, it is clear that the war in Ukraine and fears of a major recession have not had a negative impact on the art market.
On 8 November last, AFP, the French Press Agency, highlighted this phenomenon in an article titled “Collection of Microsoft co-founder could fetch over a billion dollars in New York“, adding “By auctioning in New York the art collected by Paul Allen (Microsoft’s co-founder who died in 2018), Christie’s is aiming for a historic sales record in a bold move that reflects a market whose indicators are higher than ever, despite the geopolitical and economic crises.“
During December 2022, as part of our major revamp, we will be introducing significant changes to the presentation of our databases and Artist Pages on Artprice by Artmarket. This development, conceived with a UI/UX approach, will therefore be effective ahead of the tariff increase with the objective of boosting Artmarket.com’s revenues from the very start of 2023.
Conceived after 18 months of in-depth analysis by a highly specialized team of UI/UX consultants, the changes we are introducing take into account the sentiment of users when they navigate our digital media (databases and services). The objective of UX design is to enhance the experience of Artprice customers and/or prospective customers as much as possible in order to make it easier and more intuitive, both on mobile and desktop devices. As a result of these changes the expectations and needs of Artprice’s customers and users will be better satisfied.
Thanks to UX design, online navigation is more fluid and more effective. It eliminates the incomprehension that users often encounters in their daily online experiences and takes into account not just the logistics of online navigation, but also the ’emotional’ aspect of online navigation.
The Interface aspect (UI design) of our modifications has focused on enhancing the interaction of Artprice users with our databases and services. This approach has been used at all stages in the development of our new website, right through to its roll-out in mid-December 2022.
Unlike UX (user experience), UI is more focused on the visual aspect in order to attract the user’s eye and to encourage Artprice users to remain on the various databases and services. The UI approach has facilitated navigation through all of Artprice’s decision support tools. Its primary objective is to attract new prospects and customers, enthusiasts, collectors and art market professionals. Thus, Artprice has modified its R&D policy by collaborating in a highly selective manner with the very best consultants in the field in order to acquire new market shares.
The Artists Pages are the principal and most common entry points to all of Artprice’s databases and services because artists are the foundation on which the art market has been based since its origin. It is for this reason that our website revamp has aimed to reposition artists at the heart of the art market, a position that is inevitable with the production of Art NFTs which are one of the foundations of Web 3.0.
This global overhaul of Artprice aims to give its customers and users a better experience, in line with their needs, after several years of collecting and analyzing their queries, in strict compliance with the legislation in force in Europe and the USA.
This overhaul includes, of course, the arrival of Art NFTs, the growth of which is exponential and constitutes a paradigm shift for artists in the art market who find themselves once again masters of their destiny, as was the case during the Renaissance.
All of the art market’s market-makers, and in particular the majority of its auction houses around the world, now have an NFT department for cataloged and online sales throughout the year. Likewise, all the major structures in the museum/art galleries industry are starting to publish their own NFTs.
In addition, the major overhaul of Artprice by Artmarket.com will at last allow the exploitation of the largest proprietary collection of original manuscripts and printed sales catalogs in the world. Dating back to 1700, and owned by Artprice, this collection is the very foundation of Artprice’s digital standardization of the art market and of its position as the World Leader in Art Market Information for the past 25 years.
Thus, Artprice users and prospects will now be able to navigate from the Artist Pages to several centuries of knowledge that Artprice by Artmarket’s historians and editors have been organizing over the last 25 years, allowing them to immerse themselves in the exceptional and mysterious history of the art market.
These new pages will highlight the wealth of Artmarket.com’s databases and services, with high added value. The use of algorithmic AI (Artificial Intelligence) will allow access to very relevant and personalized recommendations, to enhance customers’ knowledge of the art market and to generate more sophisticated subscriptions and therefore more business revenue.
Indeed, this feature takes Artprice by Artmarket clients and users into a Web 3.0 dimension and – by extension – into the domain of Art NFTs, thereby giving Artmarket.com a considerable lead in its core business.
During the course of the development of our major roll-out scheduled in December 2022, Artprice listened to both its historical customers and its new customers and prospects.
Indeed, with cryptocurrencies, Art NFTs and the Metaverse, new collectors and art enthusiasts have arrived, often considerably younger than their predecessors. There are now more than 450 million potential buyers of Art NFTs. Accustomed to speculation and risk-taking, but art enthusiasts and collectors nonetheless, they have absolutely no intention of abandoning their Web 3.0 crypto-universe.
These are the new clients of Artmarket.com, whose services they have frequently requested. Their main demand in recent years has been that we post art prices in ETH and BTC in all Artprice databases.
This huge global community could not understand why Artprice’s reference databases only quoted prices in the world’s main fiat currencies, without the two main cryptocurrencies (ETH and BTC), which weigh more than 82% of the 21,000 cryptocurrencies (excluding Stablecoins).
Appreciating the business opportunity represented by 450 million potential buyers of Art NFTs, Artprice by Artmarket’s IT, econometric and marketing teams therefore moved quickly to respond positively to their demand.
Artmarket.com has therefore once again taken a major step forward that required considerable reflection and an imposing volume of work. As a result since September 2022, Artprice now quotes 8,828,384 art auction results in Bitcoin (going back to 1 February 2011 when 1 Bitcoin was worth $0.7, £0.434031 and €0.50707) and 5,814,866 art auction results in Ethereum (going back to 7 August 2015 when 1 Ethereum was worth $3, £1.93626 and €2.735523).
Naturally, the tens of millions of calculations underlying this ambitious project were made using the value of the respective cryptocurrencies on the days the respective sales were concluded. The values were calculated by Artmarket.com’s proprietary IT systems.
Since 1997 Artprice’s primary ambition has been to foster art market transparency by expanding knowledge from a circle of insiders to the general population in order to facilitate its development and growth. The new presentation of Artprice by Artmarket will enhance this transparency through access to verified, verifiable and above all contextualized data.
Indeed, when navigating our new website, clients and members of Artprice by Artmarket will intuitively dive into the heart of art market news and will be privileged players within a human and educational approach, which is often lacking in the world of the GAFAs.
Over the years, Artprice, as the World Leader in Art Market Information, has been a partner in numerous essential and historic collaborations with artists. Their contributions have been clearly reflected in the development of our new interface with users.
The other essential collaboration has of course been with the auction houses which will now have a growing interest in collaborating with Artprice. Henceforward we will promote their future sales with discreet and effective prestige, thereby generating new recurring income for Artprice with its proprietary Intranet, which has been the reference work tool for auction houses for many years.
After two years of R&D – extended by the circumstances of the Covid pandemic – Artmarket.com customers, partners and members will be able to immerse themselves in a new experience at the heart of the art market. This is undoubtedly one of the founding steps for the future of Artprice by Artmarket, with its positioning fundamentally improved by the referencing of images on search engines (SEOs) and the dual objectives of increasing traffic in order to conquer new market shares and to monopolize the market for the certification of primary issues of Art NFTs.
According to thierry Ehrmann, CEO of Artmarket.com and Founder of Artprice:
“Artprice by Artmarket.com has patiently and methodically given itself all the means to evolve in response to the needs of Art Market professionals. All the indicators are positive for the future and we project a doubling of revenue, notably by opening up to paying advertisers integrated into our services and databases.
We have also developed, since 2017, processes to optimize the use of our servers, by limiting the power required and reducing the energy consumption of Artprice’s Data Centers by 40%. This has been achieved by using the principle of micro-grids which allow a better exploitation of production units (a multiple technologies decision) and the use of mainly renewable energies.
Through its commitment to the micro-grid, the Artprice by Artmarket Data Centers are part of a responsible and shared environmental logic (without risk for Artprice’s processing requirements) which involves analyzing the evolution of renewable energies with regard to new applied sciences and ongoing research according to the principle of “formativity” (notion coined by Luigi Pareyson).
Given the generous geography of our head office (Domaine de la Source, built in 1630), we are developing, with partners, a ‘climatic’ system based on the technique of artesian wells which capture water from deep layers of subsoil. This system will be protected by patents that will be filed by Artprice and Server Group, and it will respond in an ecologically responsible manner to the current energy crisis which is far more serious than the two oil shocks of 1973 and 1979 and which is only just beginning.
As a global leader, Artprice considers eco-responsibility a philosophical and moral obligation. It is coherent with our market position, our corporate culture and the sentiments of our customers.
Moreover, as regards the exchange of Art NFTs on its Marketplace and given the current energy context, Artmarket.com is pleased to have preferred Ethereum for a long time and fully supports the remarks by France’s Minister of the Economy, Mr. Bruno Le Maire, as indicated in a previous press release:
Artprice by Artmarket.com confirms that in the first two quarters of 2022, the phenomenon of Art NFTs became a lasting segment of the art market on all continents with an acceleration of turnover and volumes in the second half of 2022 due notably to the purge of crypto-currencies and much more favorable new legislation in the USA as well as the introduction of regulatory framework in Europe that prevents crypto-abuse/fraud and enhances the confidence of consumers, investors and operators.
These regulations have been the subject of studies, colloquia and proposals to major French and European government bodies by Blanche Sousi and the Art & Law Institute, where Artprice by Artmarket has been heavily involved as a long-standing member since 1997.
Artprice invites you to read the latest Banques Notes published by the European Center for Research in Banking and Finance, with the analysis of Blanche Sousi, Professor Emeritus of the University of Lyon 3, Jean Monnet Chair ad personam in European banking and monetary law:
“The European Regulation MiCAR has just been adopted: are NFTs regulated? No, but…”: https://banque-notes.eu/le-reglement-europeen-micar-vient-detre-adopte-les-nfts-sont-ils-reglementes-non-mais/
thierry Ehrmann, Founder of Artprice and CEO of Artmarket.com emphasizes: “In its various annual reports on the Art Market and its regulated information, Artprice by Artmarket.com has always said with regard to NFTs that it is impossible to apprehend this new market without a perfect knowledge of the relevant Monetary & Financial Codes and Intellectual Property Codes of the countries in which the market is operating. Similarly, to appreciate the nature of this market (experiencing exponential growth), one also needs a true understanding of Blockchain, crypto-currencies and their cultural origins among the Cypherpunks (period of PGP-type data encryption at the beginning of 1990).“
Copyright 1987-2022 thierry Ehrmann www.artprice.com – www.artmarket.com
l Don’t hesitate to contact our Econometrics Department for your requirements regarding statistics and personalized studies: [email protected]
l Try our services (free demo): https://www.artprice.com/demo
l Subscribe to our services: https://www.artprice.com/subscription
Artmarket.com is listed on Eurolist by Euronext Paris, SRD long only and Euroclear: 7478 – Bloomberg: PRC – Reuters: ARTF.
Discover Artmarket and its Artprice department on video: www.artprice.com/video
Artmarket and its Artprice department was founded in 1997 by its CEO, thierry Ehrmann. Artmarket and its Artprice department is controlled by Groupe Serveur, created in 1987.
See certified biography in Who’s who ©:
Biographie_thierry_Ehrmann_2022_WhosWhoInFrance.pdf
Artmarket is a global player in the Art Market with, among other structures, its Artprice department, world leader in the accumulation, management and exploitation of historical and current art market information in databanks containing over 30 million indices and auction results, covering more than 800,000 artists.
Artprice by Artmarket, the world leader in information on the art market, has set itself the ambition through its Global Standardized Marketplace to be the world’s leading Fine Art NFT platform.
Artprice Images® allows unlimited access to the largest Art Market image bank in the world: no less than 180 million digital images of photographs or engraved reproductions of artworks from 1700 to the present day, commented by our art historians.
Artmarket with its Artprice department accumulates data on a permanent basis from 6400 Auction Houses and produces key Art Market information for the main press and media agencies (7,200 publications). Its 5.4 million (‘members log in’+social media) users have access to ads posted by other members, a network that today represents the leading Global Standardized Marketplace® to buy and sell artworks at a fixed or bid price (auctions regulated by paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article L 321.3 of France’s Commercial Code).
Artmarket with its Artprice department, has been awarded the State label “Innovative Company” by the Public Investment Bank (BPI) (for the second time in November 2018 for a new period of 3 years) which is supporting the company in its project to consolidate its position as a global player in the market art.
Artprice releases its 2022 Ultra-Contemporary Art Market Report:
https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-contemporary-art-market-report-2022
The Artprice 2022 half-year report: the art market returns to strong growth in the West:
https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/global-art-market-in-h1-2022-by-artprice-com
Artprice by Artmarket’s 2020 Global Art Market Report published in March 2022:
https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-art-market-in-2021
Artprice’s 2020/21 Contemporary Art Market Report by Artmarket.com:
https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-contemporary-art-market-report-2021
Index of press releases posted by Artmarket with its Artprice department:
serveur.serveur.com/Press_Release/pressreleaseEN.htm
Follow all the Art Market news in real time with Artmarket and its Artprice department on Facebook and Twitter:
www.facebook.com/artpricedotcom/ (over 5.9 million followers)
Discover the alchemy and universe of Artmarket and its artprice department https://www.artprice.com/video headquartered at the famous Organe Contemporary Art Museum “The Abode of Chaos” (dixit The New York Times): https://issuu.com/demeureduchaos/docs/demeureduchaos-abodeofchaos-opus-ix-1999-2013
- L’Obs – The Museum of the Future: https://youtu.be/29LXBPJrs-o
- www.facebook.com/la.demeure.du.chaos.theabodeofchaos999 (over 4 million followers)
- https://vimeo.com/124643720
Contact Artmarket.com and its Artprice department – Contact:Thierry Ehrmann, [email protected]
Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1009603/Art_Market_logo.jpg
View original content:
