Several cinema operators in Romania share a market estimated at some EUR 50 million, Romania-Insider.com has calculated.

Cinema City Romania saw its sales grow by 19 percent last year, to EUR 30.3 million, and consolidated its position as the largest cinema operator in Romania.

Cinema City Romania is part of Cinema City group which is the largest cinema operator in Central and Eastern Europe and the third largest in Europe. The company opened its first multiplex theatre in Romania in 2007, in Iasi. It currently runs 16 modern multiplexes in 12 cities with a total screen count of 148.

Its largest multiplex theatres are in Bucharest, in AFI Palace Cotroceni and Sun Plaza. The AFI Palace multiplex also has the only IMAX cinema in Romania. Cinema City also signed four new leases last year, two in Bucharest, one in Ploiesti and one in Targu Jiu.

The second cinema operator by sales in Romania is Grand Cinema Digiplex, which is not a stand-alone company, but a part of Baneasa Developments, the company which operates the Baneasa Shopping City mall in Northern Bucharest. The cinema in Baneasa, which was opened in September 2011, quickly became one of the most visited cinemas in Bucharest. Last year, it generated revenues of about EUR 6 million, according to the company’s representatives.

The new cinemas opened by Cinema City and Baneasa Developments in Bucharest created strong competition for older operators. Both Hollywood Multiplex and Movieplex, which were among the first multiplex cinema operators in Bucharest and in Romania saw their revenues decline in recent years.

Holywood Multiplex, which operates one multiplex cinema in Bucuresti Mall and the stand-alone Cinema Pro street cinema, posted sales of EUR 5 million in 2013, down 6.5 percent compared to 2012. Since 2009, the company’s revenues declined by a third.

Movieplex, which operates the cinema in Plaza Romania mall, had sales of EUR 3.2 million last year, 12 percent lower than in 2012 and almost half compared to those in 2009.

The fifth largest private cinema operator in Romania is The Light, which has the cinema in Liberty Center Mall, also in Bucharest. The light had EUR 1.26 million sales in 2013, 9 percent lower than in 2012.

“Romania is the largest underdeveloped movie theatre market in Central Europe. Lack of investment in cinemas through the years led to a dramatic decrease in the number of cinema screens. Old cinemas were closed down and admissions decreased dramatically,” according to Cinema City’s annual report. This makes Romania an attractive market for cinema operators to expand their businesses.

The growing number of multiplex cinema theaters in recent years led to a growth both in number of viewers and in movie ticket sales. The 192 movies which had their premieres in 2013 sold almost 9.14 million tickets with a total value of EUR 37 million.

This is a significant increase compared to movies released in 2012, who had 8.33 million viewers and EUR 33.4 million in sales.

Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com