Laura Carollo
Research expert covering cinema and film
Box office worldwide - statistics & facts
As multiple economies across the world started to lift mobility restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 outbreak, different cinema markets experienced varying levels of recovery. In 2023, global box office revenue grew to about 34 billion U.S. dollars, with the North American market leading at just under ten billion dollars. While this figure augurs well for the recovery of the industry, it remains inferior to the 42.3-billion-dollar result recorded in 2019 before the pandemic. Which markets managed to bounce back?
Leading markets
The North American remains the leading market with about nine billion U.S. dollars recorded in 2023, a strong increase in comparison to the previous years and is on its way to full recovery. The European box office also fared well in 2023, grossing a box office revenue exceeding seven billion euros thanks to robust markets in France, Germany or in the United Kingdom. Mexico recorded the highest box office revenue in Latin America in 2022, more than the second and third markets combined (Brazil and Argentina respectively). The Nigerian film market held the largest share of box office revenue in Anglophone West Africa, while the Asia Pacific region represented 39 percent of the global box office, coming in first position as of 2023.China's box office boom
Box office gross in China – one of the highest in the world – dropped in 2022, standing at over 30 billion yuan, before bouncing back to about 55 billion yuan the following year. The expansion of cinema in Asia's largest economy is not just a result of its gargantuan consumer market but also its dynamic business development. The number of movie theaters in China grew continuously for over a decade, surpassing 12.7 thousand in 2023. The recovery recorded in 2021 continued as movie ticket sales in China rose sharply in 2023. According to Chinese sources, domestic productions accounted for most of the country's recovery at the box office. All of the 10 highest-grossing movies in China in 2023 were Chinese productions.Forecasts for cinema ads
The different paces of each market also impact projections of growth for cinema advertising spending, which fail to reach pre-pandemic levels. Cinema advertising revenues are expected to stagnate in the following years for the domestic market, at around one billion U.S. dollars. However, cinema was the second fastest-growing advertising channel in the United States as of 2023, only surpassed by business-to-business. The evolution of advertising spending was more modest on the worldwide scale, recording a 6.1 percent change in 2024.
