China's film industry raked up a record USD 4.84 billion box office revenue last year, emerging as one of the major movie markets in the world along with Hollywood and Bollywood.
China's box office sales totalled 29.6 billion yuan (about USD 4.84 billion) in 2014, up 36 per cent year on year, the country's film bureau said today.
Domestic films collected more than 16.15 billion yuan, accounting for 54.5 per cent of last year's box office revenues in the Chinese mainland, said Zhang Hongsen, head of the film bureau under the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.
Terming films like "The Taking of Tiger Mountain", "Coming Home" and "Dearest" as outstanding domestic movies, Zhang said despite facing pressures from Hollywood, Chinese films still gained major market share and were welcomed by audiences.
A total of 618 Chinese films were produced in 2014 while 638 were made in 2013.
More people went to see movies in 2014 with viewers taking 830 million trips to cinema, up 34.5 per cent year on year, stat-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Earnings of 66 films surpassed the 100 million benchmark last year, including 36 domestic productions. In 2013, 60 films had surpassed that figure.
China gained 1,015 cinemas and 5,397 screens last year, bringing the total number of screens in the country to 23,600.
"On average, 15 more screens were added each day," Zhang said.
He said Chinese films grossed 1.87 billion yuan overseas, up 32 per cent.
As the second-largest film market after the US, China saw its film industry balloon in 2010, when its annual box office sales surpassed 10 billion yuan for the first time.
In 2013, it took only six months for ticket sales to reach 10 billion yuan (USD 1.6 billion) figure.
Although box office revenues alone cannot fully reflect the state of China's film industry, attracting larger audiences and increasing domestic market share will help promote the country's soft power, Xinhua quoted experts as saying.
