The cinema business has been going better than expected this year for Baneasa Developments, the owner of the Baneasa Shopping City mall in northern Bucharest, and could further boost the mall's revenues from entertainment, Romania-Insider.com has learned.

Grand Cinema Digiplex may sell one million tickets this year, which is almost 30 percent more than the 780,000 tickets sold in 2013, according to representatives of Baneasa Developments.

“The cinema has been going sharply up. We are now number one in town and the numbers this year show a great percentage increase. We may approximate one million ticket sales. Initially our plan was to get somewhere between 860,000 and 900,000 tickets sold, but the first four months were very good”, Georgios Argentopoulos, CEO of Baneasa Developments told Romania-Insider.com.

This increase in ticket sales will push up Baneasa Developments’ revenues from the entertainment business to about EUR 9 to 10 million this year. The cinema is the main source of income for this segment with the rest coming from the Grand Combo gaming area, which was opened at the end of last year in Baneasa Shopping City. Last year, this line of business generated some EUR 6 million in revenues for Baneasa Developments, mainly from the cinema, Argentopoulos explained in an interview for Romania-Insider.com.

In 2013, Baneasa Developments had net sales of EUR 42 million, 6 percent higher than in 2012, and a net profit of EUR 10.3 million, 30 percent lower compared to the previous year, according to official data from the Finance Ministry. For this year, the company’s representatives see a stronger growth in sales.

The Grand Cinema Digiplex, which was opened in September 2011, is the only cinema in the northern part of Bucharest. The cinema has 13 screens and can hold 2,600 spectators at the same time.

Its main competitors in Bucharest are Cinema City, which operates two cinemas, one in AFI Palace Cotroceni and the other one in Sun Plaza, Hollywood Multiplex, which is located in Bucuresti Mall in Vitan, Movieplex, which is part of Plaza Romania, and The Light Cinema, in Liberty Center.

Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com