What Year Will China Pass Domestic?

[POTUS 2020]

There is a lot of hype that China will pass domestic in the near future. I disagree, as I have posted a few times. To stop sounding like a broken record to all those that keep stating the obvious apparent; a huge continuous trend with no end in sight, I'm looking for the blindside and the trend to break suddenly for numerous reasons. Everyone can voice their opinions here as will I.

 

The poll is to see what the consensus is.

 

You can also post:

 

The year for China to overtake Dom.

The year of the first $1B movie

The Franchise, Director or Producer of the first $1B film. if its Avatar name it or it can be Cameron doing something else, "unknown DC Comic collective" like Avengers

 

I will create a spreadsheet and update it monthly. All posts must be by the end of the year, 2015.

I may start a new spread sheet every year to keep things interesting. This may take a long time to resolve, but then again, all we have is time.

 

My reasons that it will be a lot longer than people think:

Any of these can/will happen. I'm not saying all will, but one or more combined will stifle the growth in the near and/or distant future.

 

Global financial/real estate crisis' happen every 7 to 10 years. Its been 6 years since the meltdown. Another will be coming soon and will effect China. China has recovered well from the last two, 2001 and 2009 but they are bigger than ever and as they say the harder it will fall.

 

Most economies that have huge growth for 20 years hit a wall like Japan in 89

 

Stories of China Ghost cities. They have already overbuilt and cant get enough  people to move from the country to the city.

 

Movies are novelty to most still. That will wane for many as it has in Japan and other mature markets, and 3d has globally

 

Even if GDP passes the US in a few years it will be spread out over 4x as many people. Per capita GDP will still be lower than most major nations.

 

More than half of the population subsist or make minimum wage. Would you pay a days wage to go see a movie? That leaves a potential movie going population of less than 500 million people with less disposable income than dom

 

The Yuan is pegged to the dollar but the government has let the dollar slip a little bit over the years. The BO has to overcome future XR declines

Edited May 19, 2015 by M F Lawrence

[POTUS 2020]

The Year China BO Passes Domestic

 

 

 

 

 

	Year China Over Domestic US$	Year of First $1B Movie	Franchise or Director/Producer Untitled of 1B Movie
Quiqley	2018
Johnny Storm	2019	2020	Avatar
heinrich	2020	2022	Star Wars
M F Lawrence	2026	2031	Nolan Untitled

 

 

 

 

                    

Edited May 22, 2015 by M F Lawrence

[POTUS 2020]

The pollsters average is currently at 2022 for passing domestic

Edited June 4, 2015 by M F Lawrence

[POTUS 2020]

I say it passes in 2026.

The first $1B movie will be after 2031.

I go with Christopher Nolan doing an unknown movie/franchise

 

The movie could be anything FF18, SW 12, DC and Marvel save the Universe 3. But I believe Nolan should still be around and could do something huge, be the next Cameron. His career is at the equivalent of Cameron's early 90's career. His "Titanic" or "Avatar" still to come

[lockbox]

I love this topic so much and I don't even know why. I was considering becoming a member just to pose this very question.

 

I think this is the sort of question that you can think about over and over again and never get right. Predicting the future is practically impossible without an accurate model of the system. Most predictions for the size of the chinese box office are logically nondeterministic. This means that the variables that are tracked do not have any causitive explaination for the growth.

 

For example, the most common model that people use is just the extrapolation of a recent trend.

      e.g. BoxOffice(YearsLater) = ThisYearBO * (1 + RateIncrease) ^ YearsLater

 

Applying this model to 2014 data gives a prediction of 102 million yuan by 2018 which translates to 16.3 billion dollars. If we assume no growth of the domestic market during this period than the chinese market will pass the domestic market by as soon as 2017. 

This is a completely irrational model, but I have got nothing else right now. 

[heinrich]

I'd say it passes till 2020

Firsrt movie exeed 1b$ by 2022

Third is very unsure... it's very defecult to say which Franchise will be the First $1B movie but i'd say Star Wars...

maybe it won't be a franchise at all.

Edited May 19, 2015 by heinrich

[Quigley]

2018 China > NA

[lockbox]

I think I found an interesting statistic to help give weight to arguments by pessimistic prognosticators. 

 

In the US there are 117 million households and the average household has an income of $51,939 per year.

That means that each household needed to spend $88.54 on movie tickets last year.

That amount is 0.17% of the households income.

 

In china there are 772 million employed persons with an average wage of 52,388 CNY or $8,382 per year. 1

That means for china to surpass the domestic BO ($10.36B) each employed person would need to spend $13.42 on movie tickets.

That amount is 0.16% of the employed persons wage.

 

At the US proportion (0.17%) the Chinese BO would be $11B.

If it is assumed that this is the maximum proportion that is reasonable to expect any citizen to pay. It sets an absolute limit to the growth of the Chinese BO. When there is a limit to an exponentially growing data source, a sigmoid function  is a better model than an exponential function. This would suggest that the chinese BO will start slowing down when it hits the midpoint of its maximum i.e. $5.5B.

 

Therefore according to this model, the Chinese BO will start slowing down after this year. (Last year was ~$4.7B.)

[alee7915]

China's Pivotal Role in Hollywood's Billion Dollar Movie Club

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robcain/2015/05/17/chinas-pivotal-role-in-hollywoods-billion-dollar-movie-club/

[POTUS 2020]

I think I found an interesting statistic to help give weight to arguments by pessimistic prognosticators. 

 

In the US there are 117 million households and the average household has an income of $51,939 per year.

That means that each household needed to spend $88.54 on movie tickets last year.

That amount is 0.17% of the households income.

 

In china there are 772 million employed persons with an average wage of 52,388 CNY or $8,382 per year. 1

That means for china to surpass the domestic BO ($10.36B) each employed person would need to spend $13.42 on movie tickets.

That amount is 0.16% of the employed persons wage.

 

At the US proportion (0.17%) the Chinese BO would be $11B.

If it is assumed that this is the maximum proportion that is reasonable to expect any citizen to pay. It sets an absolute limit to the growth of the Chinese BO. When there is a limit to an exponentially growing data source, a sigmoid function  is a better model than an exponential function. This would suggest that the chinese BO will start slowing down when it hits the midpoint of its maximum i.e. $5.5B.

 

Therefore according to this model, the Chinese BO will start slowing down after this year. (Last year was ~$4.7B.)

What you say makes sense. I see a flattening of the curve soon. Its easy to have 20-40% gains when it starts with a small number and there is so much room to expand, but when it gets to the level that it is now it approaches a saturation point that quells it. Its going to break through 5.5b this year, with so many blockbusters and possibly a 40% increase it could be flat next year. If not I believe it will be under 10B when it does. Then like DOM it will have its up years and down with overall small growth.

[Quigley]

The only "but" is that in one case you're using number of households and in the other number of employed.

[POTUS 2020]

The only "but" is that in one case you're using number of households and in the other number of employed.

in the US the number of employed and households are nearly the same; 117 HH, 120m employed

[Quigley]

in the US the number of employed and households are nearly the same; 117 HH, 120m employed

And what's the average income per employed person?

[Olive]

2014 29.6B +35.6%

2015 38.5B +30%

2016 48.1B +25%

2017 57.7B +20%

2018 66.3B +15%($11B)

so 2018/2019

Edited May 21, 2015 by Johnny Storm

[DeeCee]

What's the rate of new cinema construction? Are there signs of a slow down?

It's interesting that the last 12 months have seen a decline in overall smartphone sales in China.

Edited May 21, 2015 by DeeCee

[POTUS 2020]

And what's the average income per employed person?

about the same.

the median is at 26k since 2/3 make less  than the average

sounds low but minimum is $7.25 p/hr or 15k per year. not ideal to live on but one can still buy a matinee ticket for 1 hours wage

[POTUS 2020]

2014 29.6B +35.6%

2015 38.5B +30%

2016 48.1B +25%

2017 57.7B +20%

2018 66.3B +15%($11B)

so 2018/2019

Assuming dom will be over 11b by 2018. I put you down for 2019 on the table

[sgchn40]

May I understand why domestic box office includes Canada? Is it because annexation is coming soon? 

[POTUS 2020]

May I understand why domestic box office includes Canada? Is it because annexation is coming soon? 

I often wondered that, because Mexico is not included. Maybe the theater chains cross the border or P&A are wrapped into one. IDK. That's another good point though. Their GDP will have an addition 12% than the US the beat Domestic

 

Annexation would be good, could use the oil, water and wood. 

 

Nearly became the US back in the 1770s. One snow storm stopped that from happening

[sgchn40]

I often wondered that, because Mexico is not included. Maybe the theater chains cross the border or P&A are wrapped into one. IDK. That's another good point though. Their GDP will have an addition 12% than the US the beat Domestic

Annexation would be good, could use the oil, water and wood.

Nearly became the US back in the 1770s. One snow storm stopped that from happening

Is Puerto Rico included?

Do you think that if Canada is not included, we will see China passing domestic a year earlier?

Edited May 22, 2015 by sgchn40