MoviePass's low-cost member ticket purchase model has caused controversy, and the domestic market needs not to worry about it.

Wanda has not yet recovered from the controversy, and its US subsidiary AMC is mired in another dispute.

original title: this company has challenged Wanda's AMC, will it cause cinema revolution in China?

Wanda has not yet recovered from the controversy, and its US subsidiary AMC is mired in another dispute.

recently, AMC, the largest theater company in the United States, announced that it would attack MoviePass, an online movie subscription service, accusing its price reduction strategy of interfering with the normal business of cinemas.

MoviePass is an innovative online movie subscription service, which can be understood as an electronic version of "Netflix", that is, subscribers are charged a certain fee every month, and users can watch any movie every day in any cinema they work with.

its mode is also a little similar to the cinema version of the "video website membership" mode.

when MoviePass was founded, the membership fee was $50 a month, then reduced to $15 a month (Note: $30 in some areas, this article is uniformly expressed as $15), and recently dropped to $9.95 per month, with an average ticket price of $8 in the United States. The latest monthly membership fee is almost the same as the price of a movie ticket, but if you buy a member, you can see 30 movies.

ticketing process

it is worth noting that in the MoviePass model, although the user's monthly fee is fixed, the ticket price for each movie is the original price, and the rest is subsidized by MoviePass.

the lower price is obviously good for MoviePass, and in just a few days after its announcement, the number of members and visitors increased so much that its CEO Mitch Lowe was so busy that it did not have time to explain the dispute to the outside world.

for cinemas, this is tantamount to making things worse. Originally, the North American film market was not good this year. Now that low prices have attracted more members, AMC, as a representative of traditional cinema chains, is certainly beginning to panic.

strong > MoviePass is known as cinema-online version of Netflix / strong >

MoviePass was founded in 2011, its unique business model is not yet in China, so domestic people can only call it "cinema-online version of Netflix".

Netflix started in the DVD rental market. Before it was established, the American DVD rental market model was very traditional and simple: you came to our store, I rented you DVDs, returned DVDs at maturity, and did not deduct money.

while Netflix's business model is:

online operation, pay monthly fee, you choose a disc, I mail it, and return it when it is due. Compared with the traditional mode, Netflix is lighter, more convenient and more worry-free, which is in line with the development direction of the market.

the traditional cinema model is also very simple. I open the cinema and you buy a ticket to see the movie, but MoviePass borrows from Netflix and changes the model to: pay monthly fee, choose a movie, go to see it, once a day.

this mode sounds quite attractive to people who like to watch movies. At the initial monthly rate of $50, with an average fare of $8, I made a profit by watching it seven times a month; then the monthly fee was reduced to $15, which means I earned it by watching two games a month;

and now the monthly fee is reduced to $9.95. It means that as long as I have a need to watch a movie once a month, it is very cost-effective to apply for a membership card.

so far, MoviePass has cooperated with 4000 cinemas and 36000 screens in the United States, with a coverage rate of more than 90% in the United States, which can be said to have formed a considerable climate.

not only is the business model very similar to Netflix, even MoviePass's CEO Mitch Lowe is the co-founder of Netflix. After leaving Netflix, he finally chose MoviePass to start a business again.

although MoviePass has not disclosed its current operation to the outside world recently, in a financing in 2016, foreign media reported that MoviePass had an annual turnover of only US $10 million (about RMB 68 million) and 20, 000 users.

at that time, CEO Mitch Lowe confidently announced that it would be profitable in the next two years.

strong > behind the low prices, MoviePass financing grabs the market / strong >

the timing of this controversy is very delicate, because MoviePass has just completed a new round of financing.

according to foreign media information, MoviePass sold most of its shares to Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc, a company based on data and consulting. The reason why it is willing to invest is to take a fancy to the user viewing data resources owned by MoviePass.

with these user viewing data, Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc can realize accurate marketing and advertising marketing, which is essentially similar to the business model of domestic e-commerce.

with this money as backup, MoviePass is not afraid to lose money. The original goal of making a profit within 2 years should be difficult to achieve for customers.

at that time, the monthly membership fee was still at $15 a month, the number of users was still at 20, 000, and the subsidy for MoviePass was a little less, so was the loss. But now that the monthly fee is down to $9.95, a large number of new users are pouring in, and the corresponding losses will continue to expand.

this business model will do no harm to the cinema line in the short term, because no matter how many movies users watch, MoviePass will pay the cinema line in full, which is equivalent to the domestic ticket supplement, but in the long run, it will disturb the normal business rhythm of the cinema line.

therefore, this dispute broke out. If there is not a good solution to this matter, it will be a big blow to MoviePass.

although AMC was sold to Wanda and became a subsidiary of Wanda, it has become the largest cinema company in the United States in recent years, with 1000 cinemas and 11000 screens, accounting for nearly 1/3 of the total number of screens in MoviePass.

strong > there is a big difference between the Chinese and American markets, and it may be difficult for MoviePass to land in China. / strong >

MoviePass this business model has not yet fully matched in China.

now online ticketing platforms such as Maoyan and Taobaopiao generally launch joint membership cards with cinemas. The data of both parties are shared, and each ticket purchase is discounted according to the number of times of single ticket purchase. There is a certain discount compared with the original ticket price, but the discount is between 10% and 20%, which is not as large as expected, and there is no monthly service like MoviePass.

since there is no such a perfectly matched business model in China, can it be done at home? after in-depth study, the reporter found that it is very difficult in China.

on the one hand, it is because of the difference in cinema revenue structure between China and the United States. In the United States, 40% of the revenue from cinemas comes from sales, so the monthly service can encourage the audience to go to the cinema and spend at the same time, increasing the revenue of the cinema; the revenue from sales in domestic cinemas can only account for 10%. Many cinemas have no incentive to cooperate with third-party customers.

secondly, the domestic online ticketing market has passed the stage of pricing, and more and more attention has been paid to narrowing the loss gap. The essence of this model is to attract audiences to enter the cinema at a low price, doomed to use a large number of subsidies as a means, if introduced into China two years ago, there is still some hope.

in the end, there are still great differences in ticket purchase methods between China and the United States. due to the development of the mobile Internet, more than 80% of ticket purchases occur online, while offline ticket purchases are still dominant in the United States. so there is still a window opportunity for this kind of online ticketing service in the United States.

the most important thing is that this service of MoviePass is a real-name authentication method bound to individuals, which can only be used by yourself. Once introduced into China, it will face the huge risk of real-name authentication and low-price distribution on Taobao.

considering all the above circumstances, this matter will encounter considerable difficulties in China, and the possibility of success is extremely slim.

Edit: mary