Online Film Releases in China Grow 260 % in 2016

While the box-office receipts in China slowed down to 3.7 percent growth rate in 2016, demand for online movies grew at an enviable rate of 260 percent. The numbers explain where Chinese audience went to meet their demand for movies.

China Film Insider reported that in 2016, over 2,500 Chinese online movies were published by the seven major on-demand video streaming platforms. These were feature-length movies. In contrast, movies exhibited in Chinese cinemas reached 423, including 92 foreign films.

Video Streaming Sites

Around 70 percent of 1,780 titles were published in iQiyi, almost triple its 2015 output of 512, reported iQiyi and EntGroup. It was followed by Sohu Video, Youku-Tudou and Tencent Video. The bulk of the films are on a revenue-sharing program of the video streaming sites.

In the case of iQiyi, the company pays to the film owner 0.5 yuan to 2.50 yuan per view of films on its subscription revenue-sharing program and 0.5 yuan to 1 yuan per view for movies that take advertising revenue cuts. For the highest-grossing movie title in iQiyi in 2016, “Legend of 4 Idiots II,” the video platform site paid 18.3 million yuan from 9.9 million yuan in 2015. Across all 78 titles, iQiyi paid 30 million yuan in advertising revenue.

Streaming Service Subscribers

Similar to the growth rate of online movies published, for the same year number of video streaming service subscribers also rose 240 percent as paying subscribers reached 75 million which EntGroup estimates would further increase to 100 million in 2017. The number, though is almost 14 percent of the 545 million online video users in China, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.

China’s online movie industry is still on its infancy stage since it began only in 2013. After iQiyi discovered that only 300 of films out of 600 movies made yearly are exhibited in cinemas, iQiyi began offering the movies on its platform, Yang Xianghua, senior vice president of iQiyi said.