Cinemark Exhibition giant Cinemark Holdings on Friday unveiled its first-quarter financial results, with a sharply lower loss on higher revenue compared to a year ago.
Cinemark saw total revenue increase 19 percent to $643.1 million, against overall revenue of $540.7 million in 2025. Admissions revenue for the three months to March 31, 2026 was $311.4 million, up from a year-earlier $264.1 million, while concession revenue came to $255.2 million, ahead of the $210.4 million posted in the same period of 2025.
Cinemark said it hosted 24 million patrons in its U.S. theaters during the first quarter, up 17 percent from year ago levels. The net loss attributable to Cinemark was $6.4 million, compared to a $38.9 million net loss a year ago.
“Our first quarter results marked our strongest first quarter since the onset of the pandemic across all revenue categories and adjusted EBITDA, with meaningful top-line growth and margin expansion,” Cinemark CEO Sean Gamble said in a statement that accompanied his latest financial results.
Gamble pointed to 17 percent of his company’s global box office coming from alternative content during the first quarter, while 13 percent of the worldwide admissions revenue came from premium large format (PLF) screens, including XD, Imax and ScreenX.
The rise of event cinema has exhibitors like Cinemark acquiring new PLF screen locations, or leveraging their own branded premium screens, in a bid for more assured revenue streams. That’s a bet film viewers will continue in the streaming era to leave their living rooms at home for the local multiplex to see Hollywood tentpole releases.
Cinemark has been investing to add to its portfolio of PLF locations, which includes its own proprietary XD screens. “As we aim to create unforgettable, larger-than-life entertainment that can’t be found at home or anywhere else, we focus on ensuring our guests receive a premium moviegoing experience at Cinemark regardless of which auditorium they choose,” the company said in its executive summary on Friday.
On a morning analyst call, Gamble after CinemaCon talked about current negotiations between studios and exhibitors around the evolving theatrical window now at around 45 days before films are available in homes. “There’s recognition that the shortened window has been creating headwinds in full attendance recovery, particularly for smaller titles and more casual movie-goers,” he argued.
Gamble added the link between the prevailing theatrical window and an opening weekend audience was imprecise, but, with studios opting for longer runs, “recent shifts in windows was an important reset in the right direction, based on the sizable reductions that may have gone a bit too far over the past few years.”
Film windows were as dramatically short as 17 days or 31 days for bigger Hollywood titles as the streaming era took hold during the pandemic.
The Cinemark boss also urged studios to stagger tentpole releases as another building block to restoring theatrical attendance to pre-pandemic levels. “We’ve seen some of that kind of clumping, and we would have wished that some the stuff that’s been programmed this summer would have been spread earlier in the year,” Gamble said.
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