Zeng Maojun: The market value of Wanda Theater will exceed 100 billion yuan and transform it into an "ecological company"

Zeng Maojun, president of Wanda Cinema, said,"Wanda Cinema should use its advantages in the capital market to increase mergers and acquisitions of domestic cinemas." As Wang Jianlin revealed at the annual meeting, the pace of Wanda Theater in 2016 is still buying.

On January 22, Wanda Cinema, as the domestic "No. 1 theater stock", was listed for one full anniversary. As of press time, the market value of Wanda Cinema has reached 105.2 billion yuan, a nearly 10-fold increase compared with the market value at the beginning of its listing, and has become the world's largest cinema company by market value.

At the Wanda Annual Meeting in early 2015, Wang Jianlin specifically praised Wanda Cinema: "In particular, Wanda Cinema is good at Internet thinking, online revenue increased by 201% year-on-year, and member consumption revenue accounted for more than 70%." I value these two indicators very much. I hope that in the future, more revenue will come from online theaters, so that the cost will be lower; at the same time, the proportion of member consumption will be increased to more than 80%, and random consumption will be completely reduced, so that the operation will be safer and more stable."

A film projection terminal company, how to achieve a market value of 100 billion? At this special time point, Zeng Maojun, president of Wanda Cinema Line, accepted an exclusive interview.

Zeng Maojun, President of Wanda Cinema Line

, believes that China's film market was very good in 2015, and Wanda Cinema Line also seized this opportunity. In 2015, the single-screen output of Wanda Cinema Line increased by more than 15% compared with 2014. Many of them have already moved to third-and fourth-tier cities, with an attendance rate of 24.3%, an increase of about 10% from 2014.

It is reported that Wanda Cinema's goal is to prepare to have at least 10% of the market share of screens within five years. Among them, no less than 77 new cinemas were built in 2016, and there were also some acquisitions. There will be 1000 new pieces on the screen, of which at least two to three hundred pieces will be acquired. In 2020, Wanda Plaza will open to 500 and 1000 in 2025.

In 2016, we still buy and buy,"having enough cash", focusing on domestic

As of the end of 2015, Wanda Cinema had 292 theaters opened and a total screen of 2557, leading the market share of the cinema industry for seven consecutive years. Behind this is also the massive acquisitions and mergers of Wanda Cinema in 2015. "Wanda Cinema should use its advantages in the capital market to increase mergers and acquisitions of domestic cinemas." As Wang Jianlin revealed at the annual meeting, the pace of Wanda Theater in 2016 is still buying.

Zeng Maojun said,"When an enterprise develops to a certain stage, mergers and acquisitions are a must. On the one hand, it can expand market share, and on the other hand, it can quickly enter some fields that have not been explored." For example, in 2015, Wanda acquired Film Fashion, and Wanda quickly developed integrated film marketing, advertising, and Hollywood film investment. At the same time, hoyts, the Australia movie theater operator acquired by Wanda Cinema, has become a subsidiary of Wanda and is officially incorporated into the financial statements.

According to Zeng Maojun, in terms of market acquisitions of Wanda Theater Lines, the focus in 2016 will be on the domestic market. Because China is developing rapidly, China currently has the highest return on investment in film, so Wanda Cinema focuses its attention on the domestic market. In terms of foreign markets, compared with Europe and the United States, including developed countries such as Japan and South Korea, the film market is very stable. "Whenever you buy it, it's always at this price. You won't run it, and your profitability won't increase or decrease significantly, so it's different from domestic ones."

Regarding the acquisition budget for 2016, Zeng Maojun said that there is no specific figure, but what is certain is: "First, Wanda has enough cash on hand. Second, Wanda Cinema Line is a listed company and there are many funds ready to issue private offerings to them at any time. Many capital investors are looking forward to it."

If you want to remain the leader of this industry, you must continue to develop, and development must either be built by yourself or bought by yourself. Acquisition is undoubtedly the fastest way.

It is worth mentioning that Wanda is also making some new attempts in the recent popularity of VR. "Wanda's characteristic is that it seeks the best companies in the industry to become our partners, so we are talking to several high-tech companies, including intel, Huawei and some units from the Chinese Academy of Sciences."

As for whether there are plans to invest or even acquire VR companies, Zeng Maojun responded: "For high-tech, we will grasp the trends in the industry in the next few years and the company's position in the industry. When we know that this company is one of the best in the industry, we will go to mergers and acquisitions. Because in the Internet age, especially in terms of technology, mergers and acquisitions of some backward companies can easily be eliminated."

The proportion of box office revenue has dropped below 50%, completing the transformation of an "ecological company"

In order to consolidate its position as the leader in the industry, Wanda Theater Line has not only bought, bought, but also transformed-from a movie projection terminal to an ecological movie service company.

According to Zeng Maojun, in seeking transformation, Wanda Theater is currently paying more attention to the proportion of non-box office revenue. In this regard, China is very different from the United States. Non-box office revenue of U.S. films basically accounts for 40-50%, while that of China accounts for 8-12%, of which Wanda Theater Line accounts for 20-25%.

According to data disclosed by Wanda, Wanda Theater's annual revenue in 2015 was 8 billion yuan, and box office revenue reached 6.3 billion yuan, that is, non-box office revenue accounted for 21.25% of total revenue. At the same time, the proportion of non-box office revenue of Wanda Theater Lines has been increasing year by year in recent years. Zeng Maojun believes that after the acquisition of Film Fashion, non-box office revenue has been increased, so Wanda will have a greater improvement in 2016 than in 2015.

Just as Wanda proposed that the criterion for Wanda's transformation into asset-light is that Wanda's real estate revenue should account for less than 50%, when the box office revenue ratio drops below 50%, it means that Wanda Theater has also completed a complete transformation.

Zeng Maojun believes that movies themselves are also a service industry. Cinema is not only a place to show movies, but also a place to socialize. In the future, we will see more cafes, interactive entertainment halls in cinemas, and Wanda Theater will also have more non-box office revenue.

Although Wanda Theater's revenue in the next year or two will still be dominated by box office, non-box office revenue, including sales, derivatives and integrated marketing of major customers, will increase rapidly.

Wanda Cinema has transformed from a traditional cinema exhibitor to a provider of film life service platforms. In fact, there will be many trade fairs in the ecosystem in the future. This is the reason why the capital market is optimistic about Wanda Cinema.

Why aren't good movies scheduled? Excessive scheduling will only affect the fermentation of word-of-mouth.

Zeng Maojun pointed out that Wanda Cinema's standards for movie scheduling are mainly based on three points: first, the backstage data of Wanda Cinema on the audience's expectations for the film; second, the film's reputation after screening; third, the number of films in the same period, for example, there were 7 films in the Spring Festival of 2015, so the schedule of none of them may reach 30-40%.

"From the perspective of theaters, we serve the audience, and we naturally arrange more movies that the audience wants to watch. At the same time, if the audience watches more, we will benefit." Some films are relatively literary and artistic films, perhaps small ones, but may not be suitable for showing on the big screen. Therefore, Wanda Theater Line also plans to build an art hall in the next 1-2 years. As there are more and more screens in China, genre films will also be gradually distributed, and screening in China will be more scientific.

As for why there are some good films that are not scheduled, Zeng Maojun explained that for some word-of-mouth films, word-of-mouth films, the audience often does not choose to watch them as soon as possible, but hears from many people that this movie will only go to the cinema when it is good. "If it's not a fan-type movie and it has a high schedule at first, say 50%, you will find that the attendance rate is very poor. There are only a few dozen people in the entire movie hall, and the audience will feel bad at first. On the contrary, it will affect reputation."

In detail, in terms of film layout, Wanda Theater Line has a set of dynamic models. "We combine the top and bottom. First, the headquarters provides guidance. The source of this guidance is various indexes searched on various websites. Through the index, we can infer the approximate order of box office of the film. We will distribute the guidance to each movie district. Then they adjust it based on local characteristics."

For example,"Charlotte Worry" will definitely rank very high in Northeast China and very low in Guangzhou, while Cantonese films have a very high audience in Guangzhou. Cantonese and Shanghainese people often don't understand Beijing's comedy films. This is the regional analysis of the studio.

In terms of genre, there are two cities with a very high ranking ratio in horror films, one is Datong and the other is Tianjin. Especially in Datong, it is particularly obvious. No matter how niche a horror movie is, they watch a lot. The later the time, the higher the ranking ratio. Every time they watch a horror movie, they feel that it is not scary enough.

The big data model supported by 50 million members is even more powerful than the box office forecast of Internet companies.

Zeng Maojun affirmed that the box office forecast accuracy of Wanda Theater Line is very high."After the zero-point data comes out, our forecast accuracy can probably reach 90%. above. Regarding the layout ratio, we will give a range, and then each studio will make dynamic adjustments based on local market conditions." Of course, if the adjustment ratio is small, it will be decided by the studio, and if the adjustment is large, it will be decided by the company's decision-making committee based on comprehensive factors such as historical data.

Zeng Maojun said that Wanda Theater has always had a dynamically adjusted model in predicting box office, but the box office forecasts of Internet companies are often inaccurate. In his view, movies are a creative industry, and the creative industry cannot be fully summarized with a simple model.

Zeng Maojun introduced that currently Wanda Cinema has more than 50 million members. The data of all third-party e-commerce platforms must pass through Wanda Cinema's membership management system before tickets can be issued based on the number of seats in them. Wanda Cinema will not give e-commerce Open a bare interface. Therefore, the initiative in ticketing still lies in the hands of physical theaters.

Based on the current scale of operations of Wanda Cinema, its e-commerce transactions are equivalent to those of a medium-sized Internet company. It is reported that in 2015, the number of ticket purchases by Wanda Theater exceeded 150 million, of which more than 30% were purchased on site, more than 65% were purchased online, and more than 120 million were purchased online. Although the scale of revenue is not very large, I am afraid that there are no other Internet companies in China other than BAT and Jingdong. Behind this is a database closer to users than Internet companies.

In addition to filming, recent screenings of movies have also become the focus of attention in the industry. As a touchstone for film marketing, screenings have developed from Hollywood, but Zeng Maojun believes that screenings in China have become somewhat stale in a sense. Many screenings are just to grab box office and become a kind of unhealthy competition.

"For example, tomorrow when a movie is about to be released, another movie later suddenly moves up to the same day, and if you do this today, he will do it next time." However, this is not the case in Hollywood. It will always announce its schedule in advance. For example, Disney will set a schedule for the next 3-5 years. Audiences and marketing activities follow this rule, which is relatively positive for the development of the industry."It's a screening only when you click on it, not just for one or two days at a time. That's called early release."

However, Zeng Maojun believes that in the future, screening in the China film market will still tend to be benign. The current non-standard screening is due to the fact that there are too many upstream companies in China, many of which are newly established, and the company is not large in scale. Therefore, once the investment in this movie fails, the entire company may close down, so everyone will work hard to ensure that they survive first. However, the main film companies in the United States are the Big Six. The competition is relatively benign and they are all established by convention. There are relatively few other independent companies, so they are more standardized than the rules of the game in China.

Wen| Yu Huadong Source: Chief Entertainment Officer, the number one vertical media in the entertainment industry. Watching entertainment in a different position is worthy of attention!

Editor: kong