CINEWORLD GROUP PLC
Pre Close Trading Update
Cineworld Group plc ("Cineworld" or the "Group") plans to publish its preliminary results for the twelve months ended 29 December 2011 on 8 March 2012. Prior to entering its close period, Cineworld is pleased to announce the following pre-close trading update.
Revenues for the 52 weeks to 29 December 2011
|
| % change vs. prior year |
|
|
|
Total Revenues |
| + 1.5% |
|
|
|
Box Office (net) |
| +2.7% |
Retail |
| -0.1% |
Other Income |
| -4.4% |
The UK and Ireland cinema industry enjoyed a satisfactory year in 2011 with industry gross box office up 4.7% against the previous year (Source: Rentrak/EDI), partially boosted by an increase in the rate of VAT from 17.5% to 20% on 4 January 2011. This performance was underpinned by a strong release schedule of films in both 2D and 3D which included "The King's Speech", "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part 1", "The Inbetweeners", "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 2)", Transformers: Dark of the Moon", "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" and "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows".
Cineworld's box office performance was consistent with the overall industry performance which helped to maintain our box office market share in UK/Ireland of 24.6% for the year (2010: 24.6%) (Source: Rentrak/EDI).
Retail revenue was broadly flat reflecting the challenges arising from the demanding economic environment. The increase in box office more than compensated for a small reduction in Other Income arising from lower sales of 3D glasses and marginally lower screen advertising income. Overall we anticipate that profitability will be in line with market expectations.
We continued the conversion of our estate to digital and currently have installed digital projectors in over 75% of our 811 screens. We plan to be converted fully to digital by summer 2012. In addition we opened a 7 screen cinema in Leigh on 18 November on schedule.
There is a promising film release schedule for 2012 which includes a number of films anticipated to be blockbusters such as "The Hobbit part 1" (3D), the next Bond entitled "Skyfall", the next instalment in the Batman franchise "Dark Knight Rises", Spiderman" (3D), "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part 2", "Ice Age: Continental Drift" (3D) and "Men in Black" (3D). Accordingly we look forward to delivering further value to shareholders in the forthcoming year.
-Ends-
For further information:
Philip Bowcock 020 8987 5000
Chief Financial Officer
Cineworld Group plc
Elly Williamson 020 7920 2339
M:Communications
