A competitive pricing strategy is a key tool in the battle to engage young cinema-goers in China, which still offers huge growth potential, according to Luke Xiang, vice-president of Weying.
Weying, which is China’s leading marketing and distribution platform for film, performance, sports and other entertainment projects based on social mobile, boasts peak daily sales of six million cinema tickets representing more than 35 per cent of market share and 95 per cent of cinema penetration.
Xiang will be one of the world-class speakers at Ticketing Technology Forum 2017 at Crowne Plaza Dublin Airport in Dublin, Ireland, on April 5-6 next year.
Ahead of his appearance at the Forum, Xiang told the BoxOfficePro website that the average movie ticket price in China is $5 (£4/€4.8) – less than the average of $8 in the US, but still double that of many developing markets.
“Like any other consumer good, the Chinese care about value very much – they calculate and compare,” Xiang said.
“Price promotion is an important tool when adapting the movie-going habit; now the value focus is moving more to a film’s quality and related services like concessions, merchandise, joint promotion with brands, and social media. We practised lower pricing in the past year yet still grew our business twice as much as others.”
Xiang attributed the high rate of adoption of digital ticketing in China on more young audiences, mobile social networks and mobile wallets.
“China is the world’s fastest-growing market and still has huge growth potential,” he said. “The average age of our movie-goers is declining; this trend requires our movies to focus their stories and way of storytelling to embrace young audiences.
“It also demands the communication and marketing efforts to be youth-oriented. There is a high penetration of mobile social networks in China, with functions such as the mobile wallet, boosting usage because of a very convenient and social user experience.
“Online ticketing contributes to 75 per cent of our box office, which also creates a great opportunity for targeted marketing and promotions for movies and related brands.”
Xiang also said that he envisages the digital-ticketing marketing becoming “more consolidated”, although he added that the growth potential in China is such that “several players” will be able to compete.
For more information about Ticketing Technology Forum 2017, click here.
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