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Blitz keeps expansion on track
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Moviegoers line up at the ticket counter of a CGV Blitz cinema in Jakarta. (Kompas.com/File)
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ublicly listed cinema operator Graha Layar Prima (BLTZ), which runs the popular movie theater network CGV Blitz, aims to expand its market share by opening four to five more cinemas in the remaining months of the year amid tighter competition within the local industry.
The new cinemas will be located in several cities, such as Medan in North Sumatra, Jakarta and locations in Central Java.
At present, the company has 22 cinemas across the country, including three new cinemas that it opened this year in Jakarta, Manado in North Sulawesi and Cikupa in Banten.
“In total, we will open seven or eight new cinemas this year. We’ll keep opening new sites in order to increase our market share in the future,” Graha Layar Prima corporate secretary Mutia Resty told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
“To compete with other operators, we’ll keep giving more options for customers, including by screening alternative movies from India, South Korea and Japan in our theaters. We have also dedicated one screen in Jakarta specifically for local Indonesian movies.”
The company, which was acquired by South Korean firm CJ CGV last year, also plans to open 20 more cinemas next year as part of its plan to quadruple the number of its screens in Indonesia to 600 by 2020.
Graha Layar Prima saw its revenues increase almost two-fold to Rp 430.97 billion (US$33 million) within the period of January to September. It managed to push its net losses down by more than 81 percent to Rp 5.83 billion compared to the same period last year.
The results come in the wake of the company’s decision to conduct a rights issue in August, in which it collected Rp 650 billion by offering around 99.3 million shares. The funds are being used to pay off debts and fund capital expenditure this year.
Earlier in February, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration announced the removal of the movie industry from the nation’s negative investment list (DNI), as part of its 10th economic stimulus package aimed at reviving sluggish growth. The government expects the new policy to allow greater foreign investment in the industry.
The Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) estimates that the new regulations will help to achieve the investment target of Rp 594.8 trillion by the end of this year.
In response, other movie operators have also prepared to strengthen their market share by planning several expansions.
Kontan reported that Nusantara Sejahtera Raya — the operator of Indonesia’s largest movie theater network Cinema 21 — was planning to open seven new cinemas this year in Ambon, Maluku, Manado, Riau and Jakarta.
It aims to build more cinemas applying the XXI concept, which provides upscale facilities and design, rather than the conventional 21 concept. It also expects to book 25 million ticket sales before the year’s end, a two-fold increase from the 12 million tickets sold within the first half of this year.
As of February, Nusantara Sejahtera Raya had 826 movie screens in 152 different locations, or 73.95 percent of the 1,117 screens in the country.
However, the operator is preparing to close down at least 100 of its screens before 2019 within cinemas located in various shopping malls owned by diversified conglomerate Lippo Group.
“We will close down around 100 screens by 2019 because they will be replaced with [Lippo’s own movie theater network] Cinemaxx,” Nusantara Sejahtera Raya corporate secretary Catherine Keng said earlier this year as quoted by Kontan.
Cinemaxx expects to triple the number of its movie screens to around 250 this year as part of its ambition to create a network of theaters with 2,000 screens across 85 cities in 10 years.
