Feb 18, 2021|

JD Movie Sees Strong Start for China’s Box Office 2021

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by Vivian Yang

Sales of movie tickets on JD during the Chinese New Year holiday increased by 146 times YOY as compared to the same period in 2020; and by 11 times as compared with the week before the holiday, according to statistics revealed by JD Big Data Institute on Feb 18.

“Once COVID-19 was under control, people came back to cinemas in droves during the New Year holidays. Last spring, we could not go to the cinema due to the pandemic, and now it’s time to make it up,” according to the institute’s latest lunar new year consumption report.

As a result of this increased demand, JD launched its JD Movie Cards 2021 promotion for Chinese moviegoers ahead of the festival, containing four options of 6,12, 24 and 50 tickets at discount prices for the whole year that can be used in over 9,000 cinemas across China through JD’s online ticketing platform.

By early morning of Feb. 18, China’s box office during the holiday period had taken in RMB 8 billion yuan ($1.24 billion USD), setting a new record despite the restrictions on cinema occupancy.

Seven new releases are playing during the holidays, with Hi Mom and Detective Chinatown 3 taking the leading positions to finish their runs with sales of over RMB 3.5 billion yuan and RMB 2.7 billion yuan respectively, followed by A Writer’s Odyssey (RMB 538 million yuan), Boonie Bears: The Wild Life (RMB 406 million yuan), New Gods: Nezha Reborn (RMB 240 million yuan), The Yinyang Master (RMB 210 million yuan) and Endgame (RMB 150 million yuan).

The booming start bodes well for China’s post-COVID movie market – after it overtook the US to become the world’s top movie market in 2020.

Last July, JD was among the first movers to re-open online movie ticketing after 6 months of cinema closure. In response to the crisis, a real-name ticketing system was urgently developed by JD’s team to enable audiences to return to cinemas quickly and safely.

 

(vivian.yang@jd.com)

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