Hit and recover amid COVID-19: China rises as world's largest film market

Editor's note: The following piece was written by Zhou Muzhi, head of Cloud River Urban Research Institute. The global film industry was hard hit by COVID-19 in 2020. Just in 2020, however, China eclipsed North America to become the world's largest film market. Moreover, a strong recovery in its box office catapulted a string of domestic productions such as "The Eight Hundreds" to top earners worldwide. Why was there such a surprising turnaround? Which city had the most moviegoers? Which city spent most on movie tickets? Zhou Muzhi, head of Cloud River Urban Research Institute, will give answers in the following article.

1. China rises as world's largest film market

China's box office earnings plunged 68.2% in 2020, as its film market was battered by the coronavirus. Fortunately, after the epidemic was swiftly brought under control in China, its film market showed a rapid recovery.

Failing to effectively contain the virus, North America, the long-term biggest movie market in the world, saw its box office plummet by a whopping 80.7%. Hence, China, where attendance returned the fattest in 2020, overtook North America as the largest film market in the world for the first time.

Compared with the previous year's gloom, China's total box office collections during this year's Spring Festival hit a record 7.82 billion yuan (US$1.23 billion), setting a few new records, such as the world's single day box office in a single market and the world's weekend box office in a single market.

China's film market is in the middle of an explosive bounce.

2. Rankings by the Index of Chinese Cities' Theater Spending in 2020

Cloud River Urban Research Institute released the "Index of Chinese Cities' Theater Spending in 2020" for 297 Chinese cities at prefecture level and above, drawing on the China Integrated City Index 2019.

Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Suzhou, and Xi'an made the top 10. They combined accounted for 28.9% of the country's total box office, 32.1% of viewing trips, and 21% of theater numbers, meaning that those cities contributed roughly one third of the country's box office and viewing trips.

The 11th to 30th places were occupied by Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Changsha, Dongguan, Tianjin, Foshan, Ningbo, Hefei, Wuxi, Shenyang, Kunming, Qingdao, Wenzhou, Nantong, Nanchang, Changchun, Shijiazhuang, Harbin, Jinan and Nanjing. The top 30 cities combined made up 53.9% of the country's total box office, 51.3% of viewing trips, and 39.3% of theater numbers. That means the top 30 cities, only one tenth of all Chinese cities, contributed half of the country's box office and viewing trips.