Movie Theaters Are (Finally) Back in Business

Demand for AMC's mobile app rose to a new all-time high. Not just post-pandemic but overall!

And the numbers are pretty big.

Pre-pandemic, the app's highest month of downloads was July of 2019 when the app saw 412K downloads. Then the pandemic happened and downloads dropped to just 10K in July of 2020.

I'm not going to even calculate the percentage because it'll be a very sad number.

And downloads are a fairly good proxy for people going to the movies because these days most purchasing is done via app, which is convenient for moviegoers and analysts.

2021 showed good signs of recovery with 229K downloads in July, according to our estimates.

The trend was also looking positive, and in July of 2022, downloads rose to 409K. Almost double year over year, and almost beating the all-time best from 2019.

Downloads in 2023 grew even more, and since we're looking at first-time downloads, this means even more people are going to the movies. July ended with 651K downloads from the App Store and Google Play - though most from the App Store.

And even though 2023 hasn't ended yet, downloads for the year are already higher than 2020, 2021, and 2022 - and are on track to beat 2019.

This is great for an industry that was hit hard, and I hope it'll also mean we can expect more new movies in the near future.

I'm also pretty sure this is bad news for streaming services...

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