Inox to pump in Rs 1,500 crore to take the game to rivals

MUMBAI: India’s second largest multiplex chain Inox Leisure’s director Siddharth Jain has chalked out an aggressive growth strategy for the company that lost out on acquisition opportunities to rivals like PVR, Cinepolis India and Carnival Cinemas.

“We are leading the market in new signings in the past three years. Today, we have almost 500 screens operational and another 700 signed. We are making the boldest moves in the market,” Jain told ET.

These include two properties in prime locations in Mumbai, and properties in cities including Delhi, Gurugram, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Kolhapur, Coimbatore, Salem, Cuttack and Gwalior.


“Inox is considered as a niche premium brand, but somewhere, we made mistakes and let go of some properties. We are learning from our mistakes. We are focussing on giving the best quality to our patrons, so our attention to detail is very high. We want to be part of big centres and have best properties across all India,” Jain said.

Inox, launched in 1999, grew on the back of acquisitions as it was the first multiplex player to kick off the consolidation phase in the industry by acquiring Calcutta Cine in 2007. Later, it also acquired Fame India in May 2013 and Satyam Cineplex in August 2014. However, in the last few years, the multiplex sector saw major action from market leader PVR (Cinemax and DT Cinemas), Carnival (Big Cinemas, Glitz, and Broadway) and Cinepolis India (Fun Cinemas and a few DT Cinema properties).

“We are open for inorganic expansion, but I don’t see any good cinema chain available,” Jain said.

Inox at present has 496 screens across 124 properties in 61 cities. It also has a 10-screen deal with IMAX, out of which two screens are operational. Remaining 8 screens will be operational in the next 12-18 months.