Cinemark: 📈, AMC: 📉
Like every cinema chain, Cinemark has had a bumpy decade, as movie theaters in general struggled to compete with the rise of streaming and experienced lower ticket sales even before the pandemic. And the pandemic itself left a long-term impact — the company has closed about 50 locations since the end of 2019, according to SEC filings. Despite its recent strength, Cinemark’s shares are still down more than 50 percent from their all-time high in 2015.
But its peers have struggled far more.
AMC Entertainment, the largest U.S. theater chain, has closed more than 100 locations since the end of 2019, though it still had about 7,300 screens across 562 theaters in the United States at the end of last year. The company, which made some sizable acquisitions before lockdown, ended 2020 with nearly $6 billion in debt and teetered on the brink of bankruptcy before being rescued by meme-stock traders. The London-based company that owns Regal, the second-largest U.S. theater chain, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022 and has closed at least 140 locations since lockdown.
The North American box office saw its third-best year ever in 2019 with $11.4 billion in revenue, but that number shrank to $2.1 billion in 2020 as the pandemic froze the industry. Revenue had almost rebounded before last year’s Hollywood strikes forced studios to slash their 2024 release schedules.
Overall, Cinemark charges less than its peers. The company’s average ticket price in its most recent quarter was $7.32, substantially less than AMC’s $11.29, according to SEC filings from both companies.
“They have focused on keeping their pricing low so that they could drive the most attendance,” Wedbush Securities analyst Alicia Reese said. “Having a reasonable ticket price has encouraged more families to come in and for those families or individuals to buy more concessions.”
The company also sells certain higher-end concession offerings, such as Caesar salads and wraps in California, and samosas in Texas, Reese said. Last year, Cinemark’s concession sales reached an all-time high — increasing 3 percent from 2019 despite a 25 percent drop in attendance during that same period, according to its SEC filings. AMC saw a 3 percent decrease in concession sales during that time, according to its SEC filings.
Caption from an article by Hannah Ziegler.
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