After Aamir Khan, PVR INOX’s Aamer Bijli emphasizes more theaters in India: ‘USA, China have 100 and 70 screens per million, we are 10-11 screens per million’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, who is fondly called ‘Mr. Perfectionist' by fans, recently shared his opinion about the dismal number of screens in India, impacting footfalls and thus business at the ticket windows. ”When we increase our number of screens, you'll see the business expand at the grassroots level. The base of your pyramid will go wide,”  Khan had observed.

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Now, Aamer Bijli, Lead Specialist – Innovation, Film Marketing & Digital Programming, PVR INOX Ltd, has echoed the actor’s sentiments while talking to Variety India and says, ‘there's a lot of room to grow’. 

“I think India, compared to leading markets such as the US and even China,  on a per-screen-per-million basis of the population, is still lacking. So, there's a lot of room to grow. I believe the US leads with over 100 screens per million. China is second with about 70-80 screens. And we are quite low still, in about the 10-11 screens per million range. So, there's a lot of territory still to be mapped, especially with big blockbusters like “Varanasi,” “Ramayana,” and the Hollywood blockbusters, such as “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Dune: Part Three” lined up. Our goal is to strive for better penetration,” explains Bijli.

He also shares that PVR INOX has a lot of ground to cover to penetrate the country's tier 2 and tier 3 cities. “I think we're quite well indexed in tier 1 cities, of course, but we have a lot of ground to cover when it comes to tier 2 and tier 3,” asserts Aamer.

Sharing his strategies to strengthen the cinema chain in the heartlands, he adds, “ We are taking the logical steps to bridge that gap. There are a lot of new projects that we've launched in the cities and they're doing quite well. For example, we just launched a cinema in Raipur, which is actually doing phenomenal numbers. And we weren't sure, because sometimes you have to take a bit of a guess on the market intensity and see if the area is ready for a multiplex or not. But experiments like those prove us right and renew our faith in continuing to explore these tier 2 and tier 3 cities.”