Sotheby's and Chrisites Shrinking Market Share

Reuters has an interesting article on the auction market, comparing market share of a combined Christie's and Sotheby's to the rest of the world wide market. The chart in the article show the duopoly of Christie's and Sotheby's dominating the auction market from 2007, what is striking is the shrinking market share, from over 70% in 2007 to just under 55% for year to date 2011. See the chart below to graphically view the decline.

The article refers back to the online/Artnet auctions NY Times piece I posted about a few days ago (click HEREto read).  I think that some/much of the market share loss can be attributed regional auction houses now having the ability to reach an international market through internet/online sales.  The author of the Reuters article believe the trend will continue and that next year the big two will be below a 50% market share.

Reuters reports

Next year, it’s more likely than not that Sotheby’s and Christie’s between them will have less than half the global auction market for fine art (which is the data used for this chart). A large part of this is the rise of China, which has hundreds if not thousands of auction houses, and where the big two have very small market share. But even outside China I think that Sotheby’s and Christie’s are both vulnerable, in theory, to lighter-weight business models like Artnet’s auctions or art.sy or the VIP Art Fair. Many of them will fail — but some will succeed. The big two will be faced with a tough choice: do they compete directly with the new entrants, or do they protect their own high-margin core business?

To read the full Reuters article (although it is short) click HERE.

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