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Bollywoods contribution to Indian Film Industry's upward trajectory
by Eguaogie Eghosa May 24, 2021 Views (1.4K)
The Indian film industry is today a global enterprise with fans of their films cutting across 90 countries of the world-spanning 5 continents from North America to Africa. Today, Indian movies are popular throughout Southern Asia and across Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Africa, China, and elsewhere.

In 2019 alone, the Indian film industry grossed over $2.7 billion in revenue; with Indian Cinema growing ever-popular, both in India and beyond. Every year more than 1800 films get produced in various languages in India. With Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Kochi, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar-Cuttack, and Guwahati being the major film production centres in the country.

As of 2013, India ranked first in terms of annual film output, followed by Nigeria and then Hollywood. But Indian’s rise to the summit hasn’t been an overnight journey as they have continued to make steady progress in the film industry. In 2012, India produced 1,602 feature films and reached overall revenues of $1.86 billion from ticket sales of over 3.5 billion in 2011. These ticket sales numbers were over 900,000 above that sold by Hollywood in the same period.  In 2015, India had a total box office gross of US$2.1 billion making the Indian Film Industry the third-largest in the world.

Hindi Film Industry
The Indian filmmaking industry is known as Bollywood to the mainstream audience. But in reality, Bollywood is part of the Indian film industry. Hindi cinema, which is today known as Bollywood, was formerly referred to as Bombay cinema, this regional film industry from Southern Indian in the city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) makes up about 44% of what is today generally classified as Bollywood movies.

Of the 1,986 films produced by the Indian cinema industry in 2017; the Hindi Film industry accounted for 364 of that figure or 18.3% making it the largest contributor of films to the industry that year. 

Bollywood has influenced all aspects of daily life and culture in India. The film industry remains the main form of entertainment boasting of what could be regarded as a cult following in India and beyond. Just as it is in Hollywood, Bollywood fashion, for instance, has significantly influenced the Indian culture reflecting in the day-to-day choice of attire worn across the country; and particularly such attires as are worn at wedding ceremonies and other family and social functions. The impact of movie fashion is so powerful that the whole fashion industry can have their designs dictated by what a Bollywood star wears in a movie.

This regional film industry has grown so remarkably over the years that even major Hollywood studios such as Disney and Twentieth Century Fox are, today; keen to take on Indian film projects. This is because, when it comes to boxing office successes, Bollywood has a global presence in terms of the number of Indian films that have been a box office success globally.

Global Impact of Indian Films
Globally, although Bollywood has surpassed Hollywood in terms of ticket sales numbers, it, however, still trails the latter in the area of overall revenues. But that notwithstanding; it is due to the overseas revenue that Bollywood movies are becoming much more successful in recent times.
For instance, as a result of the increase, extent, and successes of Bollywood’s movies, the economies of foreign countries have begun to gain tremendously, not only from screening Indian movies but also from hosting Indian events. 

Statistics show that Bollywood contributes about £200 million annually to the UK economy for example; while locally, Hollywood and international films generated net box office revenues of $77 million in 2013; Indian films hit $1.23 billion — reflecting a niche of 8 percent market share. Within Indian film revenues, Hindi cinema dominated the box office, grossing $565 million with the cumulative total of all other regional-language films, pulling in $665 million.   

Statistics published by Statista Research Department place the value of the Indian film industry for the 2020 financial year at about 183 billion Indian rupees. This was expected to more than half the following year due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, despite the devastating impact of the pandemic, early estimates for the year 2022 show that the industry will experience up to 196 percent growth rate. Thus, pandemic aside, India has consistently been the world’s largest producer of films since 2007. At the same time, the country is the leading film market in terms of the number of tickets sold. 

And it appears that advertisers are acutely aware of the financial potential of the Indian film industry with Bollywood at the vanguard due to its popularity with audiences and therefore invest heavily in cinema-based advertising. For instance, in the fiscal year 2019, the revenue generated from in-cinema advertising was more than 11 billion rupees. With a variety of revenue sources, leveraging on the popularity of regional languages such as Hindi films, the value of the industry is set to grow bigger.



With no signs of slowing down anytime soon, India’s film industry, spearheaded by the Hindi, Telugu, and Telugu film industries will continue to grow in influence in the global cinematic terrain. Locally, since movies play an integral part in everyday Indian society, Bollywood influence will continue to be far-reaching and attracting the interests of Hollywood and other major film industries around the world. It will also most likely continue to influence Hollywood studios and actors to incorporate Bollywood themes in their future film projects.

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