Sandeep Marwah,President,Marwah Studios
"India has the world’s largest movie (film) industry, which churns out around 1,000 movies a year. It stands at an estimated $ 1.5 billion and is expected to grow around 20 percent annually. It is projected to reach $ 3.4 billion by 2010. The Indian film industry has more than 3.1 billion admissions. With a strong appetite for movies and an upward migration of household incomes in India, this segment brings out several business opportunities in this segment "said Sandeep Marwah,Director Asian Academy Of Film And Television AAFT.
"The industry realizes about 85 percent of its revenues from box office collections as compared with the US film industry where the box office sales account for only 27 percent of the revenues"added Marwah. Though the number of admissions is the highest in the world, when one compares the number of screens available for India’s population, the average is relatively low as compared with other countries. With around 12,000 theatres in the country that are mostly single – screen, the average screen density works out to be only 12 screens per a million population.
There has been an increased importance of regional cinema. According to industry estimates, Hindi language films command a 40 percent share of the Indian film market today since a large portion of the films made in India are produced in the sound and east regions of India in regional languages.
Viewship of regional films is no longer confined to specific areas. This trend is being driven by mediums such as DVDs and the Internet. "The home video households, which currently stand at three million, are project to increase to about 13 million by 2010 – primarily because VCD and DVD prices are falling "said Marwah. However, what can upset the balance is the introduction of video-on-demand and pay-per-view services by TV distributors.
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