MPAA: Global ticket sales soar thanks to Asian moviegoers
MPAA, the Motion Picture Association of America, reported a record $34.7 billion in global ticket sales in 2012, thanks in part to the growing popularity of movies in Asia. The MPAA said the Asian box office grew 15 percent last year.
A woman looks at an advertisement for the film 'Cloud Atlas' at a movie theater, in Shanghai, China last month. According to the MPAA, Global movie ticket sales broke records in 2012, thanks largely to Asian moviegoers.
AP/File
Global movie ticket sales rose 6 percent in 2012 to a record $34.7 billion thanks to the growing popularity of movies in Asia and higher attendance by diehard fans in the U.S. and Canada.
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According to the Motion Picture Association of America, China overtook Japan as the biggest market outside the U.S. and Canada combined, with sales there growing 36 percent to $2.7 billion.
As a whole, the Asian box office grew 15 percent to $10.4 billion, while in Europe, Middle East and Africa, ticket sales fell 1 percent to $10.7 billion. Latin American revenue rose 6 percent to $2.8 billion.
In the U.S. and Canada, sales rose 6 percent to $10.8 billion, driven higher primarily by moviegoers who attend once a month or more.
Those super fans represent only 13 percent of the population but bought 57 percent of all movie tickets, an increase of 7 percentage points from a year ago. Super fans grew as a share of the population by 2 percentage points.
About two-thirds of people in the U.S. and Canada saw a movie at least once last year.
And even as the number of 3-D movie screens grew, enthusiasm for the format appeared to plateau. There were 9 percent more 3-D screens in the U.S. and Canada, but revenue from 3-D showings was flat at $1.8 billion.
Globally, the number of 3-D screens rose 27 percent to 45,500.
The lackluster 3-D result was partly due to the six major studios that make up the MPAA releasing fewer movies in the format. Those studios — Sony, Universal, 20th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros. — released 36 3-D movies in 2012, down from a peak of 45 in 2011.
Attendance for 3-D movies peaks among teenagers but declines rapidly as people get older, MPAA data showed
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