Wanda rides on booming toy sales
LICENSING DEALS: Firm branching out into US$107b global merchandising mart
CHINESE billionaire Wang Jianlin’s already got film and television production companies, theme parks and cinemas. Now, he’s betting on toys.
Mtime.com Inc, the movie portal and trinkets seller Wang’s Wanda Cinema Line Co bought in July, says sales of T-shirts and figurines related to “Warcraft” are booming. The company is now chasing licensing deals with other blockbuster films after signing China agreements for the rights to “Star Wars”, and “Minions”, said Mtime chief executive officer Kelvin Hou.
“This is a global trend and China is part of it,” he said in Beijing. Ancillary revenue, including merchandise and streaming rights, will probably grow to 70 per cent of movieindustry sales in as little as five years, said Hou.
The push signals China’s entertainment industry is growing up. It also comes out of necessity as the slowdown in the country’s box-office sales is pressuring companies such as Wanda to branch out into the US$107 billion (RM478.30 billion) global merchandising market to justify their increased investments in film-related assets.
China’s box-office sales are poised to grow at the slowest pace this year since at least 2008 — receipts rose A movie character replica at a Warcraft movie exhibition. Wanda’s
says sales of t-shirts and figurines related to the movie are Bloomberg pic
4.1 per cent during the first 11 months — compared to an average of 38 per cent per year between 2007 and last year.
China’s middle-class has fuelled demand for movie tickets and rising incomes are now damping the country’s appetite for counterfeit goods, said Hou, a former Microsoft Corp executive. He diversified into the toy business four years ago after starting Mtime in 2005 as a film information database, entertainment news portal and ticketing application.
Wanda has made Mtime part of a
broader empire that includes theme park and hotel complexes like the US$7.3 billion Wanda City the company plans to build in the southern city of Haikou. The company announced the Haikou project, the third of its kind, on Wednesday.
“No one believed this could work in China because of rampant knockoffs,” said Hou. But younger, richer Chinese consumers are increasingly brand-conscious and willing to pay a premium for Mtime’s licensed items over pirated versions, he said. Bloomberg