Why the league table is the right read
Of everything auction data measures, market share is the most reliable, because it is relative. A gross total swings on which sales happen to be captured in a window; a share figure holds coverage constant, asking only who won the sales that were recorded. That makes the league table the clean way to read the market, and it tells a clear story: the dollars are consolidating at the top, while the lots are spread across a long tail of houses.
This report reads the first half of 2025 against the first half of 2024, a clean, complete window. Share is reported both ways, by value (the dollars) and by volume (the lot count), because the two tell different stories, and a house's standing only makes sense when you read them together.
30.4%
Sotheby's share of tracked value
Up from 26.5% a year earlier. Sotheby's extended its lead as Christie's slipped to 16.9%.
57.3%
Phillips' share of watch value
Up from 46.6%. Phillips owns the watch marquee, with Christie's a distant second.
2.2%
RM Sotheby's share of car volume
On which it takes 14.5% of car value: the marquee model, where a few lots carry the dollars.
The standings: Sotheby's pulls away
Sotheby's extended its lead at the top of the value table, taking 30.4% of tracked value in the first half of 2025, up from 26.5% a year earlier. Christie's slipped to 16.9% from 25.6%. The two houses that historically run neck and neck opened a gap, and it was made in fine art.
| House | Value share H1 2024 | Value share H1 2025 | Volume share H1 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sotheby's | 26.5% | 30.4% | 11.7% |
| Christie's | 25.6% | 16.9% | 10.0% |
| Barrett-Jackson | 12.0% | 13.6% | 5.4% |
| Mecum Auctions | 8.9% | 11.5% | 7.2% |
| Phillips | 8.3% | 7.5% | 3.5% |
| RM Sotheby's | 6.1% | 5.7% | 0.4% |
Read the two columns together
Notice how far the value and volume columns diverge. Sotheby's takes 30.4% of the dollars on 11.7% of the lots; the car houses Barrett-Jackson and Mecum take their share on far higher volume. The value leaders win with a handful of important lots; the volume leaders win the lot count. Neither column alone describes the market.
Category by category
Fine art: Sotheby's pulled away
Fine art drove the overall swing. Sotheby's took 59.3% of fine-art value in the first half of 2025, up from 45.5%, while Christie's fell to 26.2% from 39.2%. House share in art moves on which estates and single-owner collections land where in a given season, and in the spring of 2025 they landed with Sotheby's.
| House | Value share H1 2024 | Value share H1 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Sotheby's | 45.5% | 59.3% |
| Christie's | 39.2% | 26.2% |
| Phillips | 10.1% | 9.5% |
| Bonhams | 2.9% | 4.1% |
Watches: Phillips owns the marquee
Watches are the most concentrated category. Phillips took 57.3% of watch value, up from 46.6%, with Christie's a distant second at 14.8% and Antiquorum third. In a market defined by a handful of seven-figure lots, Phillips' New York and Geneva sales set the pace.
| House | Value share H1 2024 | Value share H1 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Phillips | 46.6% | 57.3% |
| Christie's | 20.5% | 14.8% |
| Antiquorum | 8.8% | 11.8% |
| Bonhams | 4.4% | 5.1% |
Collector cars: a split market
Cars are where the value-volume split is starkest. The US auctions Barrett-Jackson and Mecum lead on both value and volume, the high-turnover model. RM Sotheby's takes 14.5% of value on just 2.2% of lots, and Gooding 4.9% on 1.5%: the marquee model, where a small number of important cars carry the dollars.
| House | Value share | Volume share |
|---|---|---|
| Barrett-Jackson | 34.4% | 28.7% |
| Mecum Auctions | 29.1% | 38.5% |
| RM Sotheby's | 14.5% | 2.2% |
| Gooding & Co | 4.9% | 1.5% |
Jewelry and handbags: the Big Two
Christie's and Sotheby's split the top of both jewelry and handbags. Christie's led jewelry value with Sotheby's strengthening, and the two together took more than 90% of handbag value, with Bonhams and the regional rooms supplying the volume below them.
What the standings say
The value table is consolidating. Sotheby's extended its lead, Phillips tightened its grip on watches, and the top of each category took a larger share of the dollars. The marquee rooms are winning the high-value consignments, and that is where the economics of the business sit.
The volume tells the complementary story. The lot count is spread across a long tail, the US car auctions and the regional rooms, that carries the breadth of the market without the headline dollars. For an operator, the league table is a map of where to compete; for an allocator, it is a read on which houses set the prices that matter. Read by value and by volume together, it shows a market concentrating its dollars at the top while its volume stays broad.
What to watch
The league table is worth tracking quarter to quarter as consignments move. Three patterns stand out:
Consolidation at the top
The value table is concentrating. Sotheby's extended its lead and the top houses took a larger share of the dollars, a market consolidating around the marquee rooms even as the long tail of regional houses carries the volume.
Read value and volume together
A house can lead on value and trail on volume (the marquee model) or the reverse (the volume model). The gap between a house's two shares tells you its strategy: RM Sotheby's at 14.5% of value on 2.2% of lots is the marquee extreme.
Category leadership is sticky but contestable
Phillips owns watches and the US houses own car volume, but fine art moved meaningfully in a single year. House share swings on which consignments land where, so the standings are worth tracking quarter to quarter.
Read relative, not gross, the auction market tells a clear story: it is consolidating its dollars at the top while its volume stays broad. Sotheby's extended its lead, Phillips owns watches, the US houses own car volume, and the marquee rooms win the consignments that carry the economics. The value and volume tables only make sense together, and read that way, the standings are the cleanest picture of who is winning the saleroom.
“Two houses take most of the dollars; a different two take most of the lots. The league table only makes sense when you read value and volume side by side.”
Methodology & about
Methodology
This report measures relative market share, value (sum of realized USD) and volume (sold-lot count), among the auction houses ALT/FNDATA tracks across watches, jewelry and gems, fine art, collector cars, handbags and wine and spirits, filtered to completed auction sales. It reads the first half of 2025 against the first half of 2024, a window that precedes a known marquee-house price-capture gap (mid-2025 onward) currently being backfilled, so the relative standings are clean. Because share is relative, it is robust to the coverage that distorts gross totals; figures will be refreshed to more recent windows as the backfill completes. Realized prices are converted to USD at nearest-date exchange rates.
ALT/FNDATA is a market-data platform tracking 10M+ auction results across 100+ houses worldwide: the neutral, cross-market record of what luxury and alternative assets actually sell for at the hammer, not asking prices.
Cite this report
Source: ALT/FNDATA, “Auction-House Market-Share Analysis: Value vs. Volume” (June 2026). Based on relative auction-house market share (value and volume) among the houses ALT/FNDATA tracks, first half 2024 vs first half 2025. © 2026 ALT/FNDATA · altfndata.com/reports/auction-house-league-table-2025