Recent data shows that one out of ten people who visited the movies last year went alone. (Image : Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan.29 (Korea Bizwire) – Recent data shows that one out of ten people who visited the movies last year went alone.
According to the CGV Research Center’s ‘2015 Movie Industry Settlement’, the share of tickets for one reached 10.1 percent, exceeding 10 percent for the first time.
The number of people going to the movies alone has continuously increased, from 7.7 percent in 2012 to 8.1 percent in 2013 and 9.7 percent in 2014.
One out of four of those who went to the movies alone were women in their 20s. Including men in their 20s, 37.0 percent of the people going to the movies alone were in their 20s.
More than half of the people who went to the movies alone answered that they preferred going by themselves because they could ‘concentrate on the movie’ (54.7 percent).
‘Not feeling like setting a date with someone to watch a movie’ (18.9 percent) ranked second, followed by ‘not feeling like finding someone to watch a movie with’ (17.2 percent).
While people usually watched movies on Saturdays and Sundays, those who went alone mostly visited the movies on Thursdays, when new movies are released.
A noticeable trend for people who watch movies alone was that they tend to write reviews an average of 12.2 times a year, having a larger viral effect compared to the ‘ordinary’ moviegoers who only write an average of 5.6 reviews every year.
Another change in the behavior of moviegoers was the increase in box office sales of X-rated films.
The total number of people who watched movies did not increase much during the past few years, always reaching around 200 million people. But the number of people who watched X-rated films increased from 12.2 million in 2014 to 18 million people in 2015, which is a 46.8 percent increase.
The main reason is the success of ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ and ‘Insiders’.
Most surprising was that the success of X-rated films was the result of their popularity with women in their 20s. The proportion of women in their 20s among the total box office sales for ‘Kingsman’ was 32.1 percent, while 32.7 percent of those who watched ‘Murder Request’, another X-rated film, were also women in their 20s.
Officials pointed out that the results could set a new path in movie marketing. “Usually one might think that men in their 20s and 30s would prefer X-rated films more than women in their 20s do. However based on the data, we should think of new ways to promote dark and brutal movies to our new target.”
By Francine Jung (francine.jung@kobizmedia.co.kr)
