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Chinese movie revenues grew 50% in 2004, 45.8% of movie revenues came from US

Last year, 2004, was a strong year for global box office revenues, led by spectacular growth in emerging markets, according to ScreenDigest. Total revenues increased 8.
Written by ZDNET Editors, Contributor

Last year, 2004, was a strong year for global box office revenues, led by spectacular growth in emerging markets, according to ScreenDigest. Total revenues increased 8.8% in US dollar values, to $20.7 bln, in the 25 territories analysed with final or provisional year-end results. Of the total, international box office revenues (excluding US/Canada) accounted for the majority (50.8%) of revenues in 2004, the only time this benchmark has been achieved over the past three years. Another major trend in 2004 was the declining share of the North American market, which dropped 4.1% to represent 49.2% of revenues in 2004.

Global box office revenues

  Box office revenues, mln. $  
Country 2002 2003 2004 Change,
2004/2003, %
Share
in 2004, %
China 109.9 120.8 181.2 50.0 0.9
Argentina 50.8 61.4 91.3 46.7 0.4
Poland 86.2 83.3 126.5 42.6 0.6
Taiwan 149.2 124.8 178.5 38.7 0.9
Russia 112.0 194.7 267.2 28.8 1.3
Brasil 181.3 210.4 262.1 18.5 1.3
Mexico 432.6 434.6 505.0 16.4 2.4
France 966.0 1,131.8 1,430.5 15.0 6.9
Italy 496.3 592.2 718.3 10.3 3.5
Singapore 59.7 62.9 71.0 9.6 0.3
Spain 591.7 723.5 855.9 7.6 4.1
Israel 58.5 70.3 76.4 7.3 0.4
Hong Kong 116.4 111.2 117.7 5.9 0.6
Hungary 42.6 45.4 53.1 5.6 0.3
Germany 907.6 961.8 1,110.6 5.0 5.3
Australia 459.3 564.4 668.2 4.8 3.2
Ireland 85.4 110.3 126.5 4.3 0.6
Japan 1,571.5 1,752.7 1,950.2 3.8 9.4
UK 1,134.4 1,212.5 1,410.7 3.7 6.8
Czech 28.9 38.4 43.0 2.0 0.2
US 9,519.6 9,488.5 9,530.0 0.4 45.8
Norway 88.5 115.1 118.7 -1.8 0.6
Canada 613.2 677.2 699.1 -4.1 3.4
Estonia 5.5 5.8 6.0 -6.0 0.0
Netherlands 147.5 184.7 188.2 -7.3 0.9
           
Total 18,014.5 19,078.6 20,785.9    
Source: ScreenDigest

China represented the fastest growing territory in 2004, with a substantial 50.0% increase in local currency to 1.5 bln yuan ($181.2 mln), but still accounting for a only fractional 0.9% of world revenues. This was closely followed by Argentina, where total revenues rose 46.7% on the back of a major recovery from the economic crisis that also devastated the film industry in 2001. In fact, all Central and South American territories surveyed here had double digit increases in 2004. In Central Europe, Poland was the largest growth market with a 42.6% growth rate, ahead of emerging market Russia, which was also in the top five box office winners with an annual increase of around 30% to $267.4 mln.

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