According to the report, last year movie tickets sold online accounted for roughly 70% of the total box-office in China, of which approximately 40% were sold by means of vertical ticketing platforms/apps such as Maoyan Film (owned by Meituan.com.) Another 30% were sold by group buying platforms such as Dianping and Nuomi (invested in, respectively, by Tencent and Baidu).
The report also states that of all online ticketing customers, about 79% purchased tickets through mobile platforms, underlining the early dominance of mobile in this field. Based on those numbers.
The key to this Screen-to-Offline scenario is the online ticketing platform, particularly vertical B2C mobile ticketing apps. Lately, B, A,and T, the three Internet giants in China, have attempted to challenge the dominant position of Maoyan Film in this domain. Apart from Dianping, Tencent invested heavily to popularize its vertical mobile tracking app called "Wepiao" built within WeChat, Tencent's market leading mobile social app. Baidu, since having established an independent movie business department in January 2015, has continued to promote its ticket services through Nuomi. Alibaba promotes its ticket service channel on taobao.com, and recently signed a strategic cooperation with Enlight Media, the biggest privately-owned media and entertainment enterprise in China.
