AMC Theatres, like Cinemark, saw a decrease in losses over the past quarter, but still suffered from a prolonged Q3 box office drought, just like the rest.
AMC published its quarterly earnings report Tuesday. It reported quarterly revenue of $968 millions, an increase of 27% over the Q3 2021 reported at $761 million but still below the $1.14 Billion reported last quarter. “Top Gun: Maverick”The box office enjoyed a boom period in the early summer. Wall Street analysts projected a quarterly revenue of $977 millions.
From last quarter, the adjusted loss attributable by shareholders remained consistent at 20c/share. This is an improvement on 44c/share loss in Q3 2021.
AMC CEO Adam Aron stated in previous earnings calls that it would take time to see a true recovery in the movie theater business. He also predicted that the company would need to navigate a poor release slate in August/September, when domestic grosses dropped to $790m, compared with $1.52 billion in September and August 2019.
Aron expressed confidence that Q4 revenue would be significantly higher with the release films such as “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,”Which will be released this Friday. “Avatar: The Way of Water”Next month. Aron reiterated that optimism in a statement this afternoon.
“Exactly as anticipated and foreshadowed on our last quarterly earnings call, our third quarter results were impacted by a particularly soft industry-wide box office in the latter two-thirds of the 2022 third quarter, but encouragingly our overall per-patron metrics for both admissions revenue and food and beverage spending remain well above pre-pandemic levels, growing a sizable 12.0% and 30.0%, respectively, compared to the third quarter of 2019,”Aron wrote.
Since the box office drought set in back in August, AMC’s stock price has plummeted nearly 80% from $24.81 on August 16 to just $5.62 at time of writing. This sudden drop was caused by the announcement of a 2-for-1 stock split and the creation of AMC Preferred Equity, a special dividend that was intended to reduce the company’s $5.5 billion debt load. AMC and APE stock prices have fallen to $7.22 combined.
AMC continues to announce innovative revenue streams and plans. APE and the purchase a minority interest in Nevada’s gold mining company Hycroft were announced by AMC on Monday. Zoom will be creating videoconferencing rooms at select theaters in 17 cities, starting next year. AMC hopes that the partnership will be used by companies to host multicity meetings and events at its theaters. Concessions and film screenings are also possible.
“So many of us know how vital Zoom is in managing our enterprises. Now through this partnership of Zoom and AMC, we have the best of both worlds — the spectacular communications platform of Zoom combined with the comfort, size, scale, and state-of-the-art sight and sound capabilities of AMC’s centrally located theatres,”Aron stated. “This creates an all-new product in major cities across the U.S. for companies and meeting planners.”