The global box office took a record US$40.6 billion last year, industry figures showed on Wednesday, as the Chinese market resumed growth and receipts in North America declined slightly.
The worldwide figure, bolstered by globe-striding behemoths, such as Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Beauty and the Beast and Wonder Woman, marked a 5 percent rise on 2016, according to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
The figures will be seen as a relief to executives anxious over a decline in non-US revenues in 2016, the first in more than decade, with US studios increasingly relying on the burgeoning middle class in developing economies.
The association’s Theatrical and Home Entertainment Market Environment report also included new information for last year on the home entertainment market, showing consumer spending up 11 percent at US$47.8 billion.
The data shows that subscriptions to online video services around the world also jumped 33 percent to reach 446.8 million. Americans, the report concluded, now spend 49 percent of their media time on a digital platform.
“With more stories and more storytelling mediums than ever, our industry continues to adapt to an ever changing world,” MPAA chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said. “The global entertainment market is expanding on multiple fronts, constantly innovating to deliver an unparalleled experience to audiences worldwide.”
The global box office record was driven by a 7 percent increase in non-US markets (US$29.5 billion), in large part due to a resumption of growth in China, which slowed in 2015. Japan, Britain, India and South Korea rounded out the top five international markets after China.
Cinema screens increased 8 percent globally last year, reaching just more than 170,000, led by continued double-digit growth in the Asia-Pacific region.
The all-important North American box office — which boasted 262 million moviegoers, or a large majority of the 361 million joint US and Canada population — saw receipts fall slightly from a 2016 record of US$11.4 billion, back down to the previous high of US$11.1 billion.
The good news for studios looking to the future is that audiences between the ages of 12 and 17 attended an average of 4.9 movies — more than any other age group and closely followed by 18 to 24-year-olds.
Per capita attendance in North America was highest among ethnically Latin and South American, and Asian audiences.
“With the global box office continuing to grow and movies drawing younger, more diverse audiences, we see a bright future for theatrical entertainment,” US National Association of Theatre Owners president and CEO John Fithian said in a statement.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six