Cineworld Group plc
(“Cineworld” or the “Group”)
Trading Update
Cineworld, the second largest cinema exhibitor in the world with operations in 10 countries including the United States and the United Kingdom and 751 sites and 9,188 screens globally, today provides the following update on trading across the Group for the six months to 31 December 2021.
Performance and attendances have steadily grown and this has resulted in revenue growth as seen in the table below. Changes in the film slate for November mainly due to “Top Gun: Maverick” moving to May 2022 impacted the gradual recovery seen since reopening. December was particularly strong supported by the success of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” across all territories, becoming the first film to gross more than 1.5 billion dollars at the box office since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Box office and Concession revenue(1) performance vs. 2019 was as follows:
|
2021 vs 2019 |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
|
Group |
50% |
54% |
60% |
90% |
56% |
88% |
|
United States |
45% |
45% |
54% |
80% |
51% |
91% |
|
UK and Ireland |
54% |
76% |
72% |
127% |
76% |
89% |
|
ROW |
79% |
70% |
78% |
84% |
59% |
72% |
(1) Constant currency revenue
This recovery has been driven by an excellent slate of movies including record breaking “Spider-Man: No Way Home”, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”, “Venom”, “Black Widow”, “Dune”, “Free Guy”, “Eternals” and “No Time to Die”.
In ROW, November and December's performance was impacted by government restrictions due to the COVID-19 situation.
As a result of this improvement in revenue and the cost measures implemented, the Group generated positive cash flow in Q4 2021.
Whilst there remains challenges ahead relating mainly to COVID-19 situation, there is a strong film slate for 2022 including, “The Batman”, “Morbius”, “Top Gun: Maverick”, “Jurassic World: Dominion”, “Minions: The Rise of Gru”, “Thor: Love and Thunder”, “Mission: Impossible 7”, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”, “Avatar 2” and many more.
Cineplex
Cineworld also confirms that it served its notice of appeal of the decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in the case of Cineplex Inc. against Cineworld on 12 January 2022.
2021 Full year results
Cineworld will announce its full year results on Thursday 17 March 2022.
Mooky Greidinger, CEO commented: “We are pleased to see continued strong demand amongst audiences for cinema experiences, supported by a slate of high-quality and high-performing movies. This demonstrates that fans are continuing to choose the unrivalled theatrical experience. We have seen recovery in theatre attendances across our geographies, which generated a positive cashflow performance for Q4. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has shown the importance for studios of cinematic releases. Whilst there are challenges ahead, we are excited to welcome customers to our cinemas to enjoy the highly anticipated slate of movies throughout 2022. We are continuing to implement guidelines to ensure our cinemas are a safe environment for our customers, and I want to thank everyone across our team who make it possible for our customers to experience the best place to watch a movie.”
Cautionary note concerning forward looking statements
Certain statements in this announcement are forward looking and so involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events, and depend upon circumstances that will occur in the future and therefore results and developments can differ materially from those anticipated. The forward looking statements reflect knowledge and information available at the date of preparation of this announcement and the Group undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Nothing in this announcement should be construed as a profit forecast.