Cineworld saw its performance slow in its third quarter due to the hot weather and weaker film releases, but still reported a 1.4% increase in box office for the period and is up 7% year-to-date.
Admissions rose 2.3% in the 16 weeks to 17 October. Box office revenues rose 1.4%, with average ticket prices down 0.9%, which it said was due to the mix of films being orientated to lower-priced family films.
Retail sales rose 1.1% in Q3 with volume up and spend per head down, which the company said reflected film mix and promotional activities. Other sales were up 7.3%, driven by screen advertising.
Picturehouse’s box office sales rose 12.3% in Q3, almost all driven by admissions. Retail revenue rose 17.3%, with bar, café and restaurant sales account for a quarter of Picturehouse’s turnover.
The group’s market share in the 16 week period was 25.9%, an increase of 0.9% pts compared to the same period last year. Year to date market share is 25.5% (2012 : 25%). Cineworld Group market share year to date was 27.4% (2012 profoma : 26.7%).
In the 16 weeks, Cineworld Cinemas’ box office increased by 1.4% driven by admissions which increased by 2.3%. The higher proportion of lower-priced family orientated films over the summer period, (most notably Despicable Me 2 which is the highest grossing film of the year so far) resulted in average ticket price declining by 0.9%.
During the second half of the year, the group reopened the IMAX at the Glasgow Science Centre as a Cineworld Cinema.
It is scheduled to open its new nine-screen cinema at Wembley before the end of this month and a ten-screen replacement cinema at Gloucester at the start of December. It is on track to open a further four cinemas in 2014.
On 8 October 2013, the Competition Commission published its final decision on the acquisition of Picturehouse resulting in the requirement to dispose of one cinema in each of Aberdeen, Bury St Edmunds and Cambridge.
A decision has been made to dispose of the Picturehouse cinemas in Aberdeen and Bury St Edmunds. No decision has yet been made in respect of Cambridge.
The group said: “The positive start to the year continued into Q3 where there were weaker comparatives due to the impact of the London Olympics on scheduling last year. Looking forward to Q4, the film line up for the remainder of the year is promising, with strong box office performances anticipated from the key titles including “Thor: The Dark World”, “Hunger Games: Catching Fire” and “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”.
“In contrast to Q3, the company has a considerably more challenging Q4 comparative due to the phenomenal success of “Skyfall” last year. As a result, we expect our results to be broadly in line with current market expectations for the full year.”
