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Summary China overtook Japan as the world's second-biggest cinema market in the first quarter of the year.
Last year, Chinas box-office receipts grew 33.3 percent to 13.15 billion yuan ($2.08 billion) and the industrys market value reached 17.25 billion yuan.Continued growth in the first quarter of this year made China surpass Japan in box-office receipts, said Mike Ellis, Asia-Pacific president of the Motion Picture Association of America, at a conference on Thursday, without elaborating.The number of Chinas cinema screens has increased from 4,753 in 2006 to 10,700 in 2011, according to Ellis.The US film industry is not growing, but internationally the market is doing terrifically well, here and throughout other nations, Ellis told China Daily.Box-office receipts in the United States and Canada totaled $10.2 billion in 2011, down 4 percent compared with 2010, according to MPAA statistics.But the US share of the global market grew from 57.3 percent in 2010 to 58.4 percent in 2011.During Vice-President Xi Jinpings February visit to the US, China agreed to allow 14 more foreign films into the domestic market annually. Foreign film companies will also be permitted to take a 25 percent cut of the box office, compared with 13 percent previously.Ellis said that in China, box-office receipts account for 90 percent of the total return on investment, while it is just 30 percent in the US. The other 70 percent came from sales of copyrights to DVD companies, cable television firms and national TV networks.Film fans in China still find it easy to download a pirated version of a new movie, a reality that industry insiders said they have to learn to cope with, though unwillingly.
