April 2020 was worst month ever for local movie ticket sales

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April 2020 was worst month ever for local movie ticket sales

Published: 17 May. 2020, 17:37

A cinema in Seoul on April 20. [YONHAP]

The number of moviegoers fell to a record low last month as the coronavirus scare has kept people from going to cinemas, data showed Saturday.

A total of 970,000 movie tickets were sold in April, plunging 92.7 percent from 13.3 million tallied a year ago, according to data from the Korean Film Council (Kofic).

It is the lowest monthly box-office number since Kofic started to compile such data in 2004, and below the previous all-time low of 1.83 million set in March.

Total revenue nose-dived 93.4 percent on year to 7.5 billion won ($6.1 million) in April.

A record low of 140,000 people saw local films last month, down 94.9 percent on year, while foreign flicks attracted 830,000 viewers over the same period, down 92.1 percent from a year earlier.

The number of moviegoers in Korea has been declining sharply since the beginning of 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic has swept the world.

Yonhap