CBN丨China's box office pre-sales for Spring Festival season hit 200 million yuan

Hi everyone. I’m Stephanie LI.

Coming up on today’s program

• China's 2025 film market gets off to a strong start with over 200 million yuan in pre-sales;
• Hong Kong FDI inflows hit record high in 2024.

Here’s what you need to know about China in the past 24 hours

China's advanced ticket bookings for movies set to be released during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday have reached 200 million yuan as of Monday, marking a strong start for the world's second-largest film market this year.

The annual Spring Festival holiday is one of China's most lucrative movie-going seasons, running from January 28 to February 4 this year, one day longer than in previous years.

Pre-sales began on Sunday and topped 100 million yuan as of 2:27 pm on the same day, marking the fastest 100-million yuan pre-sale total in Chinese cinema history.

Five domestic films, including the highly anticipated "Ne Zha 2," the sequel to the 2019 animated blockbuster "Ne Zha," are topping the pre-sale list for the season. All of them are set to debut on Jan. 29, the first day of the Lunar New Year, according to film data platform Beacon.

Tsui Hark's adaptation of Louis Cha's wuxia classic "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" is currently leading the pre-sale box office chart with approximately 110 million yuan.

"Ne Zha 2" claimed the second spot, with advanced bookings totaling 36.5 million yuan, followed by the latest installment of the "Detective Chinatown" franchise, which garnered a pre-sale box office of 34.8 million yuan.

A number of new films have been prepared for release as the Spring Festival approaches and Chinese authorities have launched a special campaign to boost movie consumption during the festive season.

The National Film Administration launched the national film consumer benefit season recently, which runs from December 2024 to February 2025, covering major movie periods such as the New Year and Spring Festival. Several organizations are participating, and a total of no less than 600 million yuan will be allocated to subsidize movie consumption.

Online ticketing platform Tao Piao Piao under Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao is introducing movie subsidies, offering discounts between 15 and 60 yuan. JD.com is also offering a range of discount vouchers for popular movies, with no restrictions on the cinema or specific films.

• Chinese Vice President Han Zheng met with representatives from the U.S.-China Business Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other members of the U.S. business community including Tesla CEO Elon Musk in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, where he will attend the inauguration ceremony of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Monday. Han said it is hoped that US companies will continue to invest and take root in China, play an active role as a bridge, and make greater contribution to the stable, sound and sustainable development of China-US relations.
• The 55th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum will be held on January 20 to 24 in Davos, Switzerland, with the theme "Collaboration for the Intelligent Age." Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang is scheduled to attend the meeting and deliver a special address at the opening plenary, according to China's Foreign Ministry. The five-day annual meeting convenes close to 3,000 leaders from various industries around the world. A total of 350 government leaders will attend the event, according to the WEF's official website.
• China's gross domestic product expanded by 5 percent in 2024, meeting the country's preset annual growth target of around 5 percent, official data showed on Friday. The country's annual GDP came in at 134.9 trillion yuan in 2024. For the fourth quarter of 2024, the Chinese economy grew 5.4 percent year-on-year, following a 4.6 percent growth in the third quarter.

Greater Bay Area, Greater future

• Hong Kong logged a record 41 percent increase in the number of foreign direct investments in 2024, reflecting its strong appeal as leading business hub in the region. Invest Hong Kong said on Monday that it assisted 539 overseas and Chinese mainland companies to set up or expand their business in the city, represents a 41 percent increase compared to 2023. Their total investment brought in HKD67.7 billion, also a record high and a nearly 10 percent rise compared to the previous year.

Next on industry and company news

• Xiaohongshu, known as RedNote overseas, rolled out a new feature in its latest update enabling users to translate posts and comments into multiple languages, the Chinese social platform said today. The update comes after many users joined the platform from TikTok. Meanwhile, TikTok's parent company ByteDance has not reached any agreement with the US government, media learned today. The short-video site resumed operations today after a 14-hour service suspension mainly because the US decided to temporarily suspend the sell-or-ban enforcement. US President-elect Donald Trump proposed a 50-percent US ownership yesterday.
• Nvidia’s founder and CEO Jensen Huang arrived in Beijing yesterday to attend the Chinese New Year celebration. The US chip maker has around 1.5 million developers in the country, and its employee turnover rate is extremely low compared with other tech firms, Huang said at the event.
• AliExpress, the global retail e-commerce platform of Alibaba, is reportedly aiming to expand its local currency payment support in the African market next month. The platform will accept currencies from countries such as Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa and Uganda starting in February, media reported today.
• Total profits of China's central SOEs reached 2.6 trillion yuan last year, according to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of the State Council. In 2024, the total assets of central SOEs exceeded 90 trillion yuan, marking a 5.9 percent increase year-on-year. During the year, the fixed-asset investment of central SOEs, including real estate, expanded 3.9 percent year-on-year to 5.3 trillion yuan. In particular, investment in strategic emerging industries totaled 2.7 trillion yuan, marking a remarkable increase of 21.8 percent year-on-year.

Switching gears to financial news

• The People's Bank of China conducted 123 billion yuan of seven-day reverse repos at an interest rate of 1.5 percent on Monday. The central bank today also left benchmark lending rates unchanged for a third consecutive month.
• In 2024, nearly 300 billion yuan in stock buyback and repurchase plans were announced by A-share listed companies, according to the central bank on Sunday. Since the introduction of the stock buyback and repurchase loaning program in October 2024, more than 300 listed companies have announced using bank loans for stock buybacks or repurchases, of which over 40 percent possess a market value exceeding 10 billion yuan.

Wrapping up with a quick look at the stock market

• Chinese stocks rose on Monday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite up 0.1 percent and the Shenzhen Component gaining 0.9 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rallied back to the 20,000-point mark for the first time this year in early trading, closing 1.75 percent higher, and the TECH index climbed 2.6 percent.

Executive Editor: Sonia YU

Editor: LI Yanxia

Host: Stephanie LI

Writer: Stephanie LI

Sound Editor: Stephanie LI

Graphic Designer: ZHENG Wenjing, LIAO Yuanni

Produced by 21st Century Business Herald Dept. of Overseas News.

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