Mexico will have a new cinema chain: CineDOT, a company that wants to be the third player in the industry. To achieve its goal, it will make an investment of 300 million pesos to start with an opening plan in the center of the country.
The resources will be used to install 120 screens, which will comprise between 12 and 13 complexes in the chain and which will be located in Mexico City, the State of Mexico, Morelos, Jalisco and Guanajuato.
Andrés Capdepon, president of the company’s board of directors, highlighted that Mexico was the fourth country with the highest ticket sales in the world, and with the performance before the pandemic, when more than 352 million tickets were sold at national box offices, believes that the market presents an opportunity to do business.
The company will recover some of the movie theaters that other chains closed due to the pandemic, therefore, it will look for locations that are already installed. “CineDOT arises from the need of communities in which, unfortunately, due to the pandemic, cinemas closed. We see an opportunity to recover those rooms and give them a new proposal, declared Capdepon in a meeting with the media.
As part of this strategy, one of the chain’s first openings will be in Plaza Coacalco, in the State of Mexico, on July 8. The second will be in Los Reyes La Paz, in the same city. Both rooms were operated by Cinépolis,
The project has the participation of private capital with Ares Capital Partners and another group of Mexican and foreign investors. With the openings, CineDOT will generate 800 direct jobs and 4,000 indirect jobs in the 24 months, with 120 screens in five entities for the next two years.
With the pandemic, the film industry has experienced a horror movie. During the past year the National Chamber of the Cinematographic Industry (Canacine) registered an 80% drop in ticket sales. With the opening of the halls, some with reduced capacity, the complexes got 5.7 million attendees in April.
CineDOT will have a mobile application from which tickets or candy store products can be purchased and, in addition, add a loyalty card that will offer customers benefits such as discounts and accumulation of points, through QR codes. With this experience, the company wants to attract Gen Z moviegoers.
