UK competition watchdog raises concerns over Getty Images, Shutterstock merger
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The news: The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Monday that the proposed USD3.7 billion ($5.68 billion) merger between Getty Images and stock-photo rival Shutterstock raises competition concerns.
The context: The CMA said that the merger “may be expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition within a market or markets in the United Kingdom.”
As a result, the merger will be referred for an in-depth, phase 2 investigation unless the parties offer an acceptable undertaking to address these competition concerns by 27 October 2025.
While the full text of the decision is yet to be released, the watchdog’s summary noted that the emergence of generative AI (GenAI) as a source of imagery is disrupting the stock image industry, but that it has not seen evidence that GenAI players are either currently, or likely to be in the next few years, an alternative to stock content for a significant proportion of demand.
It added that there are barriers to the adoption of GenAI images in place of stock images, such as concerns around authenticity, quality and licensing issues, meaning that the proposed merged company would not face competition from GenAI players.
The watchdog also said that Getty and Shutterstock are each other’s main competitor alongside PA Media/Alamy and Adobe Stock and “while some of the Parties’ documents identify Canva as a key competitor, customers that the CMA spoke to did not identify it as an alternative. Unlike the Parties, Canva only offers stock content for use in its design tools.”
The CMA had announced on 22 August that it was looking to see if the merger would result in a lessening of competition within its markets.
The source: UK CMA
