India’s box office revenue soars 15% in 2023 despite lagging theatre admissions

The year 2023 has been an economically overwhelming year for the Indian entertainment industry as the box office revenue made a 15% increase, earning a record high of $1.47B (Rs122.3B) in comparison to the previous year, according to a recent study by Mumbai-based Ormax Media.

In 2019, India’s box office made $1.31B (Rs109.5B), which is the second-highest year on record after 2023.

Despite, making good progress on the revenue front, the showbiz business remains on the downside as the theatre admissions are still below the pre-pandemic year of 2019.

The scenes at theatres and multiplexes have changed as people are still not turning up in huge numbers to cinemas.

In 20023, admissions stood at 943 million in comparison to 1.03 billion in 2019. The revenue growth is partly attributed to the rising ticket prices.

The average ticket prices increased by 9% to $1.6 (Rs130) in 2023, compared to 2022 and it is a 22% increase over 2019 figures, according to the study.

The latter part of 2023 had a series of major successes which contributed to the market’s rebound. Shah Rukh Khan’s film Jawan claimed the top spot on the year-end chart with earnings of $88.28 million. Khan also played a pivotal role in Pathaan, a standout performer in the initially subdued first half of 2023, securing the third position overall with a box office revenue of $76.49 million. This indicates that prominent stars continue to exert significant influence on India’s box office.

The second half of the year has other big box-office hits including Ranbir Kapoor’s ‘Animal’, which became the second highest-grossing film of 2023 with $77.57M. Meanwhile ‘Gadar 2’ starring Sunny Deol collected $74.45M, and ‘Salaar: Part 1 – Ceasefire’ featuring Prabhas made $61.58M, filling the top five chart.

As per Ormax study data, Hollywood experienced an underwhelming year in India throughout 2023, with a combined box office revenue of $136.95 million (Rs 11.39 billion). This marked a 7% decline from the $147.9 million (Rs 12.3 billion) generated in 2022.

The top-grossing film from a US studio last year was ‘Oppenheimer’, raking in $19 million (Rs 1.6 billion), followed by ‘Fast X’ with $16.2 million (Rs 13.5 billion) and ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’ with $16 million (Rs 1.3 billion). Among Hollywood films, ‘Barbie’ secured the sixth position with $6.6 million (Rs 550 million), trailing behind ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3’ and ‘John Wick: Chapter 4’.

Hindi-language films regained their prominent market position in the past year, reclaiming the lead after a relatively subdued 2022 dominated by Telugu and Kannada-language hits like ‘RRR’ and ‘KGF Chapter 2’. Hindi films collectively made a substantial $646.9 million (Rs 53.8 billion), securing a 44% market share in 2023. Telugu cinema followed with a 19% share, Tamil with 16%, and Hollywood with 9%. Due to a shortage of major releases, Kannada cinema held a modest 3% market share, trailing behind Malayalam, which captured 5%.

“While most language industries except Hindi struggled to hold on to their 2022 performance (Tamil and Telugu showed growth of 14% and 6% respectively), Punjabi cinema had a resurgence in 2023, with 60% growth in box office over 2022,” Ormax said in its executive summary.

Punjabi comedy Carry On Jatta 3 raked in $6.5M (Rs540M) to become the highest-grossing Punjabi film of all time, while a total of six Punjabi films crossed the Rs100m ($1.2M) benchmark, compared to only two in 2022.

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