After recording drop-in box-office sales in May of N514 million, the Cinema exhibitors of Nigeria have made a comeback with N56 million in June.
The National Chairman of the Cinema Exhibitors Association of Nigeria (CEAN), Opeyemi Ajayi said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday.
According to him, about 210,299 viewers were also accommodated across the cinemas during the month under review.
In a breakdown of the increase in June revenue compared with what was gotten in May, Ajayi explained that the views increased by 13,057 and the sales appreciated by an additional N53 million.
- ” We were able to rake in N567,899,087 for the month of June with 210,299 viewers admission across the cinemas. We have a slight increase in sales in the month of June when we got N567,899,087 and in May we sold N514,653,363 with 197,242 viewers admission,” he said.
The following movies would be showcased in cinemas for the month of July such as “Lust Lobe and Other Things, Mission Impossible 7, Insidious, Orisha, Oppenheimer, Hotel Labamba and Unforgivable,” He said.
Backstory
Prior, TheTimes reported that the impact of the naira scarcity earlier this year affected cinema sales in Nigeria. In May, when the sales dropped by N52 million in comparison to April. The decline was attributed to factors such as the impact of naira scarcity, cash crunch, poor network service, and limited movie releases during the election period.
For March, the association recorded a total sale of N441,752,914 across all cinemas with 174,071 viewers admission into cinemas.
- ” Sales in March were encouraging compared with February when we recorded total sales of N278 million due to activities of the Presidential and National Assembly elections, as well as the national problem of cash crunch.”
In February, Cinema operators in Nigeria announced a huge drop in sales as it fell to N278 million compared with N819 million in January.
The National Chairman of the Cinema Exhibitors Association of Nigeria (CEAN), revealed gross admission within the period under review was 122,295
- “A couple of reasons are responsible for the drop in sales. We lost a weekend of sales during the Presidential and National Assembly elections, and Nigerians’ attention was focused on voting across the country.
- “Cash crunch and POS failures, affecting trading generally, are also affecting the cinemas. Many movie producers and distributors avoided releasing movies during the election period. So, the content was also somewhat limited,” he said
