In 2024, the Chinese film market experienced a downturn with a decrease of over 20% in box office attendance compared to the previous year. China’s largest cinema chain company, Wanda Film, recently released a performance forecast, predicting a huge loss for the past year. Currently, the company’s market value has evaporated by over 170 billion Chinese yuan from its peak.
Wanda Film Co., Ltd. (referred to as “Wanda Film”) released a performance forecast on January 18, predicting a net loss attributable to shareholders of the listed company of -850 million to -950 million yuan for the year 2024, while a profit of approximately 910 million yuan was made in the same period last year.
As the largest cinema chain company in China, Wanda Film’s performance reflects the overall situation of the Chinese film and television industry.
Regarding the loss in performance, Wanda Film explained that in 2024, the pressure on cinema operations was due to factors such as a lack of top films supply. The nationwide box office revenue last year was 42.502 billion yuan, down by 22.6% from 2023, with a total audience of 1.01 billion, a decrease of 22.3% from 2023.
During the reporting period, Wanda Film’s domestic-owned cinemas achieved a box office of 5.72 billion yuan (excluding service fees), a 24.3% decrease from the same period last year, with an audience of 140 million, a 23.7% drop from the same period last year. Additionally, traditional non-box office revenue of cinemas was also affected by the decline in audience numbers.
The announcement indicated that the overall recovery of the film and television industry in 2024 did not meet expectations, with signs of impairment in some of the company’s assets. The company conducted impairment tests on various assets and provisioned impairment reserves of approximately 700 million to 800 million yuan. Excluding the impairment provision factors, the company expects an operating loss of about 100 million to 150 million yuan.
As of January 21, Wanda Film’s latest market value was 23.9 billion yuan, a decrease of over 170 billion yuan from its peak.
Previous reports have shown that Wanda Film Co., Ltd. was established in 2005, with Wang Jianlin being the controlling shareholder. In 2016, Wanda Film announced a major asset restructuring plan, acquiring Wanda Pictures for 37.204 billion yuan. Prior to this acquisition, Wanda Film had a market value of 94.292 billion yuan, with many believing that the restructured Wanda Pictures industry would reach a market value of 200 billion yuan.
In December 2023, Wanda Film issued an announcement that Wang Jianlin intended to transfer 51% of the total company’s controlling shareholder, Beijing Wanda Investment Co., Ltd., to Shanghai Ruyi Investment Management Co., Ltd. In April 2024, Wanda Film officially changed ownership.