Cinemark’s profit leapt 37.6 percent for the first quarter of 2016, thanks to 10.7 percent attendance growth attributable in large part to big box office draws “Deadpool” and “Batman v Superman.”
The movie exhibitor beat Wall Street forecasts at both the top and bottom lines, reporting 50 cents earnings per share (EPS) on $704.9 million in revenue. Media analysts had estimated EPS of 46 cents on $699.23 million in revenue, per Yahoo Finance.
Revenue was up 9.2 percent, broken down like this: admissions rose 8.8 percent and concessions increased 10.9 percent.
Cinemark’s net income of $58.5 million was up from 2015’s first-quarter profit of $42.5 million. The half-dollar in earnings compares quite favorably to Q1 2015’s 37 cents.
“We are very pleased to report first quarter records in various key performance metrics, including our worldwide attendance, admissions and concession revenues, concession per patron, Adjusted EBITDA, and Adjusted EBITDA margin,” stated Mark Zoradi, Cinemark’s chief executive officer.
“The strength of the Hollywood film content drove North American industry box office growth of 12.5 percent. Cinemark’s domestic admissions revenues surpassed the industry by 160 basis points, marking 26 out of the past 29 quarters of outperformance. Locally-produced films fueled robust attendance growth of nearly 17 percent in our Latin American operations, reiterating that our industry is more closely tied to film content than economic or political environments.”
CNK stock closed Monday at $35.18 per share, down 4 cents.
Company executives will hold a conference call at 8:30 a.m. ET today to discuss the quarter more in-depth.
As of March 31, 2016, Cinemark operated 516 theaters with 5,840 screens and had commitments to open 11 new theaters with 96 screens during the remainder of 2016, and seven additional new theaters with 74 screens subsequent to 2016.