Movie exhibition giant AMC Entertainment, which is owned by China’s Dalian Wanda Group, on Monday said it expects its third-quarter earnings to be $28.5 million-$31.5 million, or 29 cents-32 cents per share, compared to $12.2 million, or 12 cents per share, in the year-ago period.
Wall Street on average has been predicting quarterly earnings of around 25 cents-27 cents per share.
AMC expects third quarter 2016 total revenues to come in between $777 million and $780 million, compared with $688.8 million in the third quarter of 2015 and compared with Wall Street expectations of around $785 million-$786 million.
Total attendance for the third quarter increased approximately 10 percent to 51.9 million guests, and average ticket prices rose 2.6 percent to $9.57. Food and beverage revenue per patron climbed 4.8 percent to $4.80.
Stifel Nicolaus analyst Benjamin Mogil said in a report: “Results were ahead of expectations on lower revenue, largely driven by lower attendance, offset by much lower aggregate expenses. We await the full financial release to gain a better sense of what cost line-items drove the better than expected results.”
AMC plans to report its complete financial results for the third quarter after the market close on Nov. 7.
“AMC continues to deliver on our key priorities,” said AMC president and CEO Adam Aron. “The recent relaunch of our AMC Stubs loyalty program in July was overwhelmingly received by guests who have signed up at rates 11 times faster than the same period a year ago — far faster than we had anticipated. Total active memberships now exceed 4 million households and are still growing rapidly.”
He added: “We believe that when we integrate these organic growth initiatives with a disciplined acquisition strategy, as we move toward completion of the Odeon & UCI and Carmike Cinemas acquisitions, we are positioning AMC to leverage the record potential of the 2017 and 2018 box office to create even greater value for our customers and shareholders alike.”
