Despite slowdown, theatres see 8.9% jump in footfalls in 2019

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Despite the country battling a prolonged slowdown, footfalls in theatres rose by 8.9 percent at 103 crore in 2019 as against 94.5 crore theatre admissions in the previous year, according to a report by Ormax Media.

The growth in theatre admissions led to increase in box office numbers, which went up to Rs 10,948 crore last year from Rs 9,810 crore in 2018.

Film and trade business analyst Girish Johar pointed out that "in the last four to five years, there was no growth. It has happened now vis-à-vis in the last year, an 8-10 percent increase in footfalls. Earlier, we had flat footfall growth. In one of the previous years the growth rate fell. It was the ticket prices that got us increased box office annual revenue cumulative. But last year 8-10 percent increase in footfalls and a jump in ticket prices resulted in good movie business. Till date, 2019 is the highest box office year for the Indian cinema and we hope 2020 also shows steady increase."

For the cinema exhibition business, a healthy growth in footfalls is more crucial than rise in ticket prices.

"Box office is direct linkage of footfalls. Number of footfalls multiplied by ticket price is box office revenues. If the base of footfall increases and even if we have an average increase in ticket price, we still have a good box office. And if the base of the footfall is less and the ticket prices increase then we don’t get a good jump. It is very critical to see growth in footfalls. A gradual increase in ticket price and a big increase in footfalls is the perfect recipe for good movie business," added Johar.

According to trade analysis Atul Mohan, as many as 23.52 crore cinema goers went to multiplexes that year, a surge of 10 percent from 2017.

Two major multiplex operators, PVR and Inox, have also shown good growth in footfalls over the years.

For Inox, footfalls increased from 121.3 lakh to 152.9 lakh people in Q3 FY19, a growth of 26 percent.

During Q2FY20, PVR recorded 2.93 crore admissions.

At 34.1 crore, Hindi theatrical footfalls surpassed the 2013 level of 33.2 crore, according to data put together by Ormax. Also, Hindi theatrical footfalls saw 7.9 percent growth from 2018 which recorded 31.6 crore admissions.

In terms of language wise domestic footfalls, share of Hindi stands at 33 percent which is the largest, followed by Tamil at 19 percent and Telugu at 18 percent. Hollywood's share in 2019 stood at nine percent.

"Heavy content-based films have less dependency on the first weekend. Apart from that more or less most commercial films do their 50-60 percent of business in the first weekend," said Johar.

He further said that while content is key, the facilities at theatres is also important.

"Now, there are mini-multiplexes in smaller towns and that is getting more people who were earlier not watching cinema to go to theatres. Quality of theatres is also luring more people," he said.