Is China's movie market development progressive?

Major players in the industry: Cat's Eye Entertainment (01896HK), Ali Movie (01060HK), Rays Media (300251), New Studios (834630), Huayi Brothers (300027), IQ (IQ.NASDAQ), Bilibili (BILI. NASDAQ)

The core data of this article: the number of enterprises related to China's film industry, the number of cinemas in China, and the number of screens in China

China's film entered the marketization stage after the reform and opening up

In 1905, China's first film Dingjunshan was born. To date, Chinese movies have gone through more than 110 years of history. Chinese movies are mainly divided into three periods of industrial development: the first round of industrial development (1922-1945), the second round of industrial development (1945-1976), and the third round of industrial development (reform and opening up to the present).

The number of related enterprises has been increasing

Through the website of Prospect Enterprise Cat, with "movie" as the keyword, the filtering condition is "in business/existing", "Culture, Sports and Entertainment" query, the results show that as of 2021, the country's culture, sports and entertainment industry-related enterprises 231,456, radio, television, film and sound recording production industry-related enterprises 96,469. Among the segmented industries, there are 7,238 film and television program production subjects, 813 film and television distribution subjects, and 485 film and television projection subjects.

After the epidemic, the number of films exploded

In 2016-2019, benefiting from the rapid growth of the domestic economy, the level of income of the population and the level of per capita consumption continues to rise, China's film production scale in general shows fluctuating growth. 2020 due to the impact of the epidemic, the number of domestically produced films declined sharply, only 301. In 2021, benefiting from the effective control of the national epidemic, the industry recovered faster, and by the end of December, the number of domestically-produced films broke through a new high, reaching 740.

Small increase in China's theater and screen count after epidemic

With the rebound in film production, the number of theaters and screens also saw some growth:

In 2016, the number of recorded theaters in China was 7,877. The rate of growth in the number of theaters has slowed in recent years, and as of 2020, the number of theaters is 11,969.The number of theaters continues to increase slightly in 2021,*** with 12,137 theaters.

In 2020 under the impact of the epidemic, the annual new screen 5794, the total number of screens increased by 8.3% year-on-year. Entering 2021, the domestic movie industry accelerated its recovery after the epidemic, and as of Dec. 31, 2021, the country added 6,667 new screens for the year, up 8.8% year-on-year, to 82,248 screens.

Overall, China's film industry has recovered better under the country's effective epidemic prevention and control mechanism, with production and theater numbers rising to a certain extent in 2021.

The above data refer to China Film Industry Market Outlook and Investment Strategy Planning Analysis Report by Prospect Industry Research Institute.