Film and TV stocks strengthened in early trading. As of press time, LINMON MEDIA (09857) surged 33.03% to HK$5.8; DAMAI ENT (01060) rose 8.94% to HK$1.34; MAOYAN ENT (01896) gained 6.05% to HK$8.24; and IMAX CHINA (01970) increased 1.2% to HK$8.4.
On the news front, according to online platform data, as of 4 a.m. on August 18, the total box office for the 2025 summer season (including pre-sales) reached 9.956 billion yuan, with August 18 expected to break the 10 billion yuan milestone. Total viewership has exceeded 260 million, showing significant growth compared to the same period last year. Additionally, the latest statistics from Maoyan Professional Edition show that the domestic animated film "Langlang Mountain Little Monster" has accumulated box office receipts exceeding 1.0026 billion yuan.
CICC pointed out that nationwide box office including service fees declined 24.3% year-on-year in July, with August showing a marginal recovery trend. The firm believes that the overall box office decline was mainly affected by the delayed release schedule of major summer films. With the positive word-of-mouth momentum for "Nanjing Photo Studio" and "Langlang Mountain Little Monster," market demand for movie viewing has warmed up in August. The firm recommends paying attention to key film box office performance and profit elasticity brought by IP derivative commercialization development.
It's worth noting that at the beginning of 2025, the General Office of the State Council issued a notice on "Several Economic Policies on Promoting High-Quality Development of Culture," which explicitly emphasized promoting quality content creation in the cultural field, particularly including film, television, animation and other key content creation.
China West Securities stated that if policy direction improves as expected, the film and TV sector is at a turning point similar to the gaming license reopening at the end of 2022. With marginal policy improvements, looking ahead, the industry's business model is expected to gradually improve, quality long-form drama projects are expected to be launched faster, industry supply of major dramas may gradually recover, thereby accelerating inventory reduction and promoting faster cash turnover for new businesses.