Here’s a look at the trends of how Indians had out-of-the-home experiences in 2019

As we bid adieu to 2019, we look at the trends in entertainment choices of Indians with BookMyShow introducing millions of its users to newer out-of-home experiences.

The online booking app hosted over 1,880 films across languages on its platform in 2019. The Marvel craze took over India as Avengers: Endgame broke all records to sell over 8.6 million tickets to become the highest-selling Hollywood film on our platform. This was followed by Uri - The Surgical Strike, with over 5.7 million tickets sold for the film.

Film trends

While the demand for Hindi films grew by 12 per cent from the last year, movie buffs booked an average of 2.6 tickets per transaction. The top-rated regional language films were in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Marathi, whereas the demand for English and Hindi films rose at 45 per cent and 25 per cent respectively. Hindi versions of regional films like Saaho, Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy and KGF have matched up to the primary language’s success at the box office. The uptake for English language films increased significantly by 56 per cent vis-à-vis last year. The Avengers series retained the top spot among English language films, wherein Avengers: Infinity War led the race in 2018, Avengers: Endgame shattered all ceilings in 2019.

Looking at the genres, about 30 per cent of the top 10 films (as per number of tickets sold on the app) were based on real-life stories and incidents. The trends also pointed towards an interest in Assamese films, which grew five times to match the increase in the number of users who chose the app to watch these films and rated them on the platform.

And action films witnessed a growth of 45 per cent, becoming the most preferred genre followed by drama and comedy.

While actors Hrithik Roshan and Ranveer Singh ruled the top 10 Hindi film bucket with two films each to their credit, Akshay Kumar with 9.2 million tickets and Ayushmann Khurrana with 6.3 million tickets overall had a great year with three films each.

Sale of tickets

The year also saw an 89 per cent rise in the number of screens occupied by the widest circulated films as compared to the previous year. The advance ticket sales grew by 11 per cent on the app in 2019, which is just shy of 20 million tickets with 11 per cent of the tickets being booked before the release. Following this, over 45 films crossed the one million ticket sales mark on BookMyShow. Just three per cent of the total tickets were booked in the last 30 minutes before a film’s show time.

Trends as per time and location

While Sunday evening was the most preferred show time for movie-goers, Hyderabad was home to the maximum number of film lovers, which was followed by Mumbai and Bengaluru. Hyderabad moved from fourth position in 2018 to outnumber its peers and lead the charts in 2019. Kochi also witnessed a 56 per cent increase in the number of people using the app to watch films as compared to 2018.

Top 10 sold films

Avengers: Endgame URI - The Surgical Strike Kabir Singh Saaho War The Lion King Mission MangalI Simmba Gully Boy Chhichhore