ALT/FNDATA · Special Report
The House League Table: Who Is Winning the Auction Market, by Value and Volume
Sotheby's extended its lead and Christie's slipped; Phillips owns watches; and the value and volume tables tell two different stories.
Market share is the cleanest thing auction data measures, because it holds coverage constant: it does not matter which sales are captured, only who won the ones that were. Read by value and by volume, the league table shows a market consolidating at the top, with two houses taking most of the dollars and a different two taking most of the lots.
The headline
The correction in three numbers
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.
Auction-house market share by value and volume, the relative read that holds coverage constant. · 10M+ auction results · 100+ houses.
Key findings
What the quarter told us
- Market share is the cleanest read in auction data, because it is relative: it holds coverage constant, measuring who won the sales that were captured rather than a total that swings on which sales were captured. That makes the league table the right way to read the market.
- Sotheby's extended its lead. It took 30.4% of tracked value in the first half of 2025, up from 26.5%, while Christie's slipped to 16.9% from 25.6%. The swing was driven by fine art, where Sotheby's pulled away in the spring season (59.3% of value to Christie's 26.2%).
- Phillips owns the watch marquee. It took 57.3% of watch value, up from 46.6%, with Christie's a distant second at 14.8%. In a category defined by a handful of seven-figure lots, Phillips' New York and Geneva sales set the pace.
- Collector cars are a split market. Barrett-Jackson and Mecum take both the value and the volume (the high-turnover US auctions), while RM Sotheby's takes 14.5% of value on just 2.2% of lots, the marquee model in its purest form.
- Value share and volume share are two different games. The houses that lead on value (Sotheby's, Christie's, Phillips, RM Sotheby's) win the dollars with a small number of important lots; the houses that lead on volume (Mecum, Barrett-Jackson, Bonhams and the regional rooms) win the lot count. Read one without the other and you misread the market.
The standings
Overall: share of tracked auction value
Auction-house share of value across the categories ALT/FNDATA tracks, first half 2024 vs first half 2025, with first-half 2025 volume share for contrast.
| 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% |
The outlook
Three trends that will define the year
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.
“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.”
Members only
Read the full report
The headline data above is free to cite. The full report is part of ALT/FNDATA Membership, which includes every quarterly market report and the Visual Analytics Hub. Inside this report:
- The full overall league table, value and volume share
- Why value share and volume share tell two different stories
- Category by category: art, watches, cars, jewelry, handbags
- What the standings say about where the market is consolidating
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Source: ALT/FNDATA, “The House League Table: Who Is Winning the Auction Market, by Value and 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