Is the domestic box office boom a lipstick effect?
- By Zhu Qiwen
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E-mail China Daily, February 4, 2016
To support an inverse correlation between such a jaw-dropping growth and an overall economic recession, one needs to find clear evidence that Chinese consumers have significantly cut their spending on other luxury products to afford their love for movies.
Sales of luxury goods such as watches have fallen in recent years, but that has more to do with the country's anti-graft campaign than a change in domestic consumer spending power.
And anyone who suggests that Chinese consumers are tightening their purse strings will have to come up with an explanation for why they are still travelling and spending more than ever both at home and abroad. Chinese travelers made around 120 million outbound trips in 2015, up 12 percent from the year before.
As to the Chinese movie market, the reality is the number of screens increased by 8,000 to 32,000 screens in around 6,000 cinemas last year, because of investors' confidence and desire to expand market share. The country had only 6,200 screens in 2010. The continuously increasing accessibility in many small Chinese cities alone can easily contribute to a steady growth in the country's box office.
The revenue growth of each cinema is also largely determined by the number of blockbusters that can attract a disproportionate share of movie-goers. But what movie will be a blockbuster is anyone's guess given the bitter lessons many domestic and foreign producers have learned from their efforts to woo Chinese movie-goers.
As Kung Fu Panda 3, which is less American and more Chinese than the first two installments, premieres before the Chinese New Year, it is no surprise that such a film tailored for the world's second-largest movie market has delighted so many Chinese parents and kids and raised its box-office potential.
So, is there a lipstick effect that we should worry about? The answer from Chinese movie-goers is probably no.
Instead, a new theory is needed to timely measure the real progress of how the Chinese economy is maturing from one based on industry to one fueled by consumption.
The author is a senior writer with China Daily.
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