Carnival Cinemas Eyes Rs1000 Crore Revenue This Fiscal
Carnival Cinemas Eyes Rs1000 Crore Revenue This Fiscal

Multiplex operator Carnival Cinemas is eyeing over Rs 1,000 crore revenue in the current financial year, representing a growth of 25 per cent.

It had clocked a revenue of Rs 800 crore last fiscal. The company said analysts are predicting its turnover to exceed Rs 1,500 crore in FY 2018-19.

Currently, the company operates over 450 screens in 150 cities and is targeting 1,000 screens by the end of this year.

Carnival Group Chairman and founder Shrikant Bhasi said “We will be adding almost 600 screens. So, by 2018 end we will have 1,000 screens on paper, as (some) may be operational by 2019. The screens would mostly come in tier II and tier III markets. After that we have a plan for 5,250 screens. Some of the small chains we are talking for acquisition, otherwise majority is going to be organic. Nowadays, closed cinemas are coming forward and we are converting that to two screen or three screen multiplex.”

A relatively late entrant in the market, Carnival has scaled its business with acquisitions like 254 screens of Big Cinemas from Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group for an estimated Rs 700 crore, 10 screens from HDIL's Broadway Cinema for about Rs 110 crore and 27 screens of Glitz Cinemas from Stargaze Entertainment for an estimated Rs 90 crore.

He also said "Occupancy rate for the weekday is going down, so that is the reason we came up with MoviEcard (a movie subscription based service). That is picking up and we have already sold 1 million cards. Now our target is to reach 10 million cards, which would take about a year. We have allocated 25 per cent seats to MoviEcard and we are planning to increase it to 50 per cent by end of this year. First phase is 40 lounges, which we are coming up in 60 days. We will start with Mumbai and Delhi but the idea is to have everywhere. We have the maximum screens in three tier cities, so we want to have this in all the cities. We are planning to add another six screens in Singapore and we are in talks with couple of developers. We are also talking to a Middle Eastern chain and Malaysia but nothing is finalised yet".

 
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