Report links Nigeria’s 2022 box office revenue growth to ticket price hike

A new report has attributed Nigeria’s 2022 box office revenue growth to a hike in ticket prices.

The report, written by the publication Inside Nollywood (IN), says it is not due to increased cinema patronage.

Earlier, the Cinema Exhibitors Association of Nigeria (CEAN) said it generated ₦6.94 billion in revenue for 2022.

It said the figure is more than the ₦4.74 billion generated in 2021, amounting to a 46.4% year-on-year growth.

Prior, CEAN reported ₦5.98 billion in cinema revenue for 2018, ₦6.4 billion for 2019, and ₦2.1 billion for 2020.

The latest figure portrayed a post-pandemic rebound after the COVID restrictions that limited cinema patronage.

But in its in-depth analysis of more box office data, Inside Nollywood says a 31.7% year-on-year increase in ticket sales revenue during the 2021-2022 window contributes to the ₦6.94 billion total recorded by the end of last year.

It said the theatres raked in more money than they have ever made before but the number of cinema consumers has remained the same since 2020 at ₦3.4 million, as the sector is yet to regain pre-pandemic admission numbers.

“The gross increase was due to several price increments at different points of the year,” the publication partly reads.

“Since 2018, the average cost of seeing a movie in the cinema has increased by 83 percent, causing audiences to ask if it makes sense to see Nigerian films in the cinema or to wait till it comes to a streaming platform.

“The weighted growth in revenue seen in the box office in 2022 is due to the exponential increase in ticket prices, growing from a ₦2,500 average to a ₦6,o00 average per person.”

IN says the box office still depends heavily on foreign films due to the low trust that audiences have for local titles.

Since the pandemic, streamers like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Showmax have increasingly penetrated Nollywood, with movie theatres fast becoming the minority choice for big-name filmmakers who now do limited cinema runs.

IN points out that, due to all these, Nollywood’s cinema market share has fallen from 33% in 2021 to 24% in 2022.

On post-pandemic cinema rebound, the film industry publication adds: “The rest of the global box office is thinking of getting people to return to the cinemas. Nigeria has had everyone back since 2021 but the needle is not moving.”