Culture of watching movies is stronger in South: PVR Inox MD

PVR Inox, which just opened the first multiplex in Ladakh, is having a great year. It is India’s largest theatre chain with 1,774 screens and ₹5,875 crore in 2024-25 (FY25) revenues. Not surprisingly, it dominates the ₹20,000 crore movie business in the country. Vanita Kohli-Khandekar speaks to Managing Director Ajay Bijli in a video interview on how the market for cinema could expand, and where PVR Inox is on that journey. Edited excerpts:

- 

What has the year been like?

■ It has been quite fantastic. There were hardly any blockbusters. It was largely smaller movies, and yet we all did very well. Till the end of October/November this year, 29 films have done more than ₹100 crore at the box office (BO). We got 78.5 million people in the cinemas in the first half of FY26.

Do you see the market is expanding in value (BO revenue) and volume (number of tickets sold)?

■ If it goes like this, it will be even bigger than pre-pandemic years. The year will end with ₹13,000 crore or something (Ormax data: The Indian box office has been stuck at ₹12,000 crore for some years now). The market is expanding also because newer screens are opening in smaller towns as well. In FY26, we will open about 100 screens. Of these, about 20-25 are in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. We will also be doing a pilot for “affordable screens” early next year. These would be constructed at a lower capex (capital expenditure) of ₹2 crore per screen (against the usual ₹3.5 crore or more). It will have lower ticket as well as F&B (food and beverage) prices. These cinemas will drive further growth. The learnings from them should allow us to open an additional 50-100 screens every year under the new aspirational and affordable screen expansion strategy.