By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian cinema sector has generated a revenue of N2.25 billion from tickets sold in the first quarter of 2024, a nearly 50 per cent rise from the N1.5 billion generated in the first quarter of 2023.
Filmone Entertainment, an independent film distribution and production company, revealed in its Nigerian Box Office Year Book for 2023 that the total admission of persons at the cinemas in the first quarter of this year was 596,609, while the same period in 2023 witnessed 620,477 attendance.
Also, the average ticket price in the first quarter of the year stood at N3,765, a 51.9 per cent rise compared to the average price of N2,479 quoted for 2023.
This indicated that the revenue in the first three months of the year was spurred by increases in prices and not by traffic to the cinemas.
The details read: “The box office revenue for Q1 2024 is N2.25 billion, inclusive of spillovers, with 596,609 admissions.
“Year-on-year, this is a 46 per cent improvement in box office revenues, although ticket prices have indeed gone up by 52 per cent.
“Nonetheless, despite the huge spike in ticket prices, the admissions rate is down by 4 per cent year-on-year, which translates to a negative correlation of admissions to ticket prices,” the report said.
“We have seen Nollywood hold 56 per cent of the box office over the period, with the highest grossing film of the year: A tribe called Judah, responsible for 27 per cent of the Q1 overall revenue, and Warner Bros. Aquaman and the lost kingdom with 11 per cent.
“There have been a total of 40 new titles released in the territory already in Q1 excluding spillovers,” it added.