If I ask you, the residents of which country go often to the cinemas, you are sure to get it wrong. It is not the Indians, not the Chinese, and not even the Americans.
<wait for the answer>
The top place goes to the Icelanders. The cold country of 330,000 residents visits on an average 4.3 times to a cinema hall in 2018 for watching a film. Next to them (again a surprise entry) are the South Koreans who visit 4.2 times a year. The Americans at 3.7 visits come at the third position. Indians and Chinese don’t figure in the top 30 entries as per World in Figures by The Economist newspaper.
The next one is easier to guess. The country which has the highest number of visits, in other words, the country with the most number of cinema-goers, the top place unsurprisingly goes to China with 1.7 Billion visitors per year in 2018. Following that is India with 1.4 Billion. In third place are the United States with 1.2 Billion.If you do a bit of research there are surprises here too:
- In 2015, China had only 333 million visitors, with India then leading with 3.2 Billion visitors. For unknown reasons, India’s moviegoers have come down by more than 50% and the Chinese have been going to movies five times more in just three years.
- In 2018, in fourth and fifth position after the USA, are Mexico and South Korea respectively.
![[Courtesy: The Economist World in Figures] Cinema attendances: total visits](https://venkatarangan.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/the-economist-world-in-figures-cinema-audience-worldwide-china.jpg)
[Courtesy: The Economist World in Figures] Cinema attendances: total visits
![[Courtesy: Statista 2021] Leading film markets worldwide in 2020, by number of tickets sold (in millions).](https://venkatarangan.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2020-Statista-film-markets-worldwide.jpg)
[Courtesy: Statista 2021] Leading film markets worldwide in 2020, by the number of tickets sold (in millions).
As per reports by Research Dive, the global over-the-top (OTT) market was $110.1 billion in 2018 has grown to over $155.6 billion in 2020. It is expected to grow 19.1% (CAGR) annually till 2026.
The BusinessWire says “In India, the top 5 metro cities account for 55% of the total OTT video platform users, while Tier one cities account for another 36% of the users. As per the survey, Hotstar leads the Indian OTT video content market, followed by Amazon’s Prime Video, SonyLIV & Netflix”.
According to findings from the Media and Entertainment Outlook 2020, “India is currently the world’s fastest-growing OTT (over-the-top streaming) market and is all set to emerge as the world’s sixth-largest by 2024. The market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 28.6% over the next four years to touch revenues of $2.9 billion”. The reports add that “In 2018, SVoD (Subscription Video-on-Demand) revenues were a third of India’s total box office revenue, but 2020 presents a key tipping point as SVoD revenue overtakes theatrical earnings”.
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