PVR Inox Charts a New Path Beyond the Big Screen

According to a senior company executive, PVR Inox is rethinking its future movie theaters as multifunctional social gathering places, but movie viewing will still be a primary service.

This shift is a response to declining attendance, which has been attributed to poor box office results and a lack of interesting film content.

According to Pramod Arora, CEO of growth and investment at PVR Inox, the company is expanding its theaters to include cafes, co-working spaces, and live entertainment.

For the nine months ending December 2024, PVR Inox reported revenue of ₹4,642.4 crore, down from ₹4,958.2 crore during the same period the year before. In the first nine months of the fiscal year, the company reported a net loss of ₹155.6 crore, down from ₹97 crore the year before.

The stock closed Monday at ₹982.6 on the BSE, up 0.5% from its 52-week peak of ₹1,748.2.

Arora stated that the goal is to create venues where people can socialise, work, dine, and relax - even if they are not watching a movie - in order to maximise the use of cinema properties.

Furthermore, the company is aggressively expanding into tier-2 and tier-3 cities using a FOCO (franchisee-owned, company-operated) asset-light model. It currently has 1,734 screens spread across 351 properties in 110 cities in India and Sri Lanka.

The asset light model has reduced the company's net debt from nearly ₹300 crore in 9M FY25 to ₹996 crore.

Under this approach, developers pay for all or part of the capital expenditure, while PVR Inox handles operations and management. As of December 2024, it had signed 220 screens in 22 cinemas using this model.

Arora also noted strong interest in this model among real estate-focused investors, though he did not name them. "They're all coming forward to convert cinema properties into more social, amenable, and communal spaces," he added.