Chinese cinema stocks a hit as New Year drives box office record (updated)

Damai Entertainment Holdings

16/02/2021 12:27

* Shares in Imax China Holding surge almost 90% to 2-1/2-yr
high
    * Alibaba Pictures, Maoyan Entertainment stocks also soar
    * Ticket sales pass $1 bln, swelled by Lunar New Year
staycations

 (Updates total box office receipts, adds closing share prices)
    BEIJING/SINGAPORE, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Cinema stocks jumped
in Hong Kong on Tuesday as record-breaking Chinese box-office
revenues surpassed $1 billion for the week beginning Feb. 11,
driven by a Lunar New Year movie-going rush.
    Data from online ticketing platform Maoyan Entertainment
 1896.HK  showed sales of 6.77 billion yuan ($1.05 billion) in
mainland China for the holiday week as of 1930 local time (1130
GMT) on Tuesday, beating the previous weekly record of 5.9
billion yuan in 2019. 
    Box office revenues had begun recovering from the impact of
the COVID-19 pandemic after cinemas reopened in June.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL5N2ER1HU
    The new year sales boom followed the decision by some
authorities, such as in Shanghai, to provide free movie tickets
to encourage people stay where they were over the new year
holiday, rather than travel to their home towns, in an effort to
contain a resurgence of coronavirus cases that began in January.
    Cinemas in Beijing opened as early as 8 am and as late as 3
am to attract younger customers, while limiting occupancy to
half of available seats to allow social distancing, China's
official People's Daily reported.
    The record receipts reflect the "robust momentum of China's
film industry," the newspaper said on social media platform
Weibo on Monday.
    Cinema stocks jumped on Tuesday on Hong Kong's first trading
day after the holiday break.
    Shares in IMAX China Holding Inc  1970.HK  soared by as much
as 87.9% to their highest since June 2018 before closing up
31.1%. Alibaba Pictures Group Ltd  1060.HK  ended up 34.6% and
Maoyan Entertainment rose as much as 24.5% to a record 19.30
Hong Kong dollars ($2.49) per share before closing up 9.6%.
($1 = 7.7526 Hong Kong dollars)
($1 = 6.4542 Chinese yuan renminbi)

 (Reporting by Cheng Leng and Aizhu Chen; additional reporting
by Tom Daly; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Barbara Lewis)
 ((cheng.leng@thomsonreuters.com; +8610-5669-2129;))