Due To Accepting Crypto Payments, AMC Theaters Earns Tens Of Percent Revenue

JAKARTA – The largest cinema chain in the United States, AMC Theaters is reported to have benefited from 35 percent of ticket payments using cryptocurrency and other digital payment methods such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, Paypal, Bitpay, and Venmo.

Previously, AMC Theaters had accepted Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. In recent months, the company decided to accept popular meme coins Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.

According to a Cointelegraph report, in the company's Q1 2022 earnings report on May 9, AMC Theaters CEO, Adam Aron, emphasized that the company's foray into crypto was not only met with a lot of “excitement” but also opened up several payment avenues that were previously explored.

“The same IT programming required for us to accept cryptocurrencies also allows us to accept other types of payments including Apple Pay, Google Pay, Paypal, Bitpay and Venmo among others. Taken together, these new payment options, impressively, currently represent around 35% of our total online payments,” said Aron.

Apart from accepting crypto as a medium of exchange, AMC Theaters is also venturing into the digital arts of NFT. The company is said to have 8 different programs, both already released and in the works. Aron judged that NFT was successful in helping AMC to “stimulate movie ticket sales.”

Previously, AMC succeeded in releasing the NFT promotion at the opening of the film made by Sony Pictures, Spider-Man: No Way Home last November 2021. The company launched an 86,000-item NFT Spider-Man for “AMC Stubs Premiere & A-List” and “AMC Investor” members.

As the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic decreased in recent months, AMC managed to record an increase in financial income in Q1. The company's revenue experienced significant growth of 429.8 percent, skyrocketing revenue in the first quarter of 2021 by US$148.3 million (equivalent to IDR 2.16 trillion) to US$785.7 million (IDR 11.5 trillion) in the first quarter of 2022. In addition, AMC recorded a loss decrease of 40 percent.

After adopting cryptocurrency payments and other digital payment services, AMC's dominance as the largest cinema chain company is getting stronger.