Recently, Wanda Film disclosed its third-quarter report for 2024. The chain of cinemas belonging to the Dalian Wanda Group saw a “double decline” in performance in the first three quarters of the year, with a net profit dropping by 84.87% year-on-year.
The report revealed that Wanda Film had approximately 9.846 billion yuan in operating income in the first three quarters of this year, a decrease of 13.23% compared to the same period last year. The net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company was around 168 million yuan, down by 84.87% year-on-year. The net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was approximately 82.49 million yuan, a decrease of 92.53% year-on-year.
In the third quarter, Wanda Film’s operating income was about 3.628 billion yuan, down by 18.98% year-on-year, with a net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company of around 55.3048 million yuan, a decrease of 92.01% year-on-year.
According to reports from The Paper, the largest shareholder of Wanda Film is Beijing Wanda Investment Company, currently holding a 20% stake, but the 222,295,619 shares it holds are under pledge.
In its announcement, Wanda Film stated that in the third quarter of 2024, the national box office revenue was 10.86 billion yuan, a 43.8% decrease compared to the same period last year, with 265 million theatergoers, a 43.3% decline from the previous year. This was mainly due to fewer blockbuster films during the summer peak season compared to 2023, resulting in a relatively lackluster performance for the film industry as a whole.
From January to September 2024, the company’s domestic self-operated cinemas achieved box office revenue of 4.61 billion yuan (excluding service fees), a 25.9% decrease year-on-year, with 110 million theatergoers, a 25.8% decrease year-on-year, and a cumulative market share of 14.7%. As of September 30, 2024, the company owned 894 operating cinemas domestically with 7,468 screens, including 707 self-operated cinemas with 6,149 screens, and 187 light-asset cinemas with 1,319 screens.
Wanda Film’s overseas cinema, Hoyts, achieved box office revenue of 214 million Australian dollars in the first nine months of this year, down by 8.9% year-on-year, with 11.8 million theatergoers, an 8.5% decrease compared to the same period last year. By the end of the reporting period, it owned 61 overseas cinemas with 530 screens.
In October of this year, Wang Jianlin sold all the equity of Legendary Entertainment, a legendary film industry of Wanda Group, in the United States. At that time, Legendary Entertainment announced that it had repurchased the remaining shares of the film company owned by Dalian Wanda Group and would be wholly owned by Apollo Global Management headquartered in the United States.