China Summer Box Office Hits Record in Rare Consumer Bright Spot

(Bloomberg) — China’s summer holiday box office sales surged to a record, one of the few bright spots in the country’s consumer sector as mounting economic headwinds spur people to be more selective in their spending.

The country has recorded 16.5 billion yuan ($2.3 billion) — excluding service fees charged by ticketing platforms — in sales so far in the season that runs between June 1 and Aug. 31, according to data from Maoyan Entertainment. That beats the previous high of 16.4 billion yuan in 2019.