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Antaeus Sets up A Digital Cinema Subsidiary
(China IT Watch Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)BEIJING, Feb 14, 2006 (SinoCast China IT Watch via COMTEX) --On February 12, Beijing- based Antaeus Group founded officially Time Antaeus Investment Group with total investment of CNY 160 million in Beijing, the capital city of China.
Liu Dan, former president of Time Media that is one of the Antaeus companies, will take the office of president of Time Antaeus Group.
Antaeus Group sets up the new company by integrating four subsidiaries in a bid to build up a full-fledged digital movie industry chain, covering technology development, film publishing, and cinema investment. The four subsidiaries are Time Media, Time Video and Audio Entertainment, Time Huaxia Cinema, and Time Cinema Investment Company.
The newly-founded company will have to compete head-to-head with China Film Digital Cinema Co., Ltd and Xinmei Digital Cinema Development Co., Ltd, which are the two dominators in this sector.
Antaeus Group got the green light from SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film and Television) and set up Time Huaxia Digital Cinema, which was the first private-owned digital cinema chains in China's mainland. So far Time Huaxia Digital Cinema has more than 300 digital cinemas, spreading in Beijing, Shanxi and Shandong provinces, most of which were jointly founded with local partners.
Liu Dan discloses that Time Antaeus' businesses will cover research and marketing of digital film equipment, movie publishing and projecting, cinema operation and management, digital cinema construction and management, and media operation.
Within this year, Time Antaeus will further put CNY 160 million in enlarging its digital cinemas to 3,000, establishing additionally 50 digital cinema cities around the country.
Liu Dan attributes the company's bold and aggressive expansion largely to its budget digital film players, which are priced at merely CNY 20,000 each, less than one tenth of that of foreign brands.
With super low-price digital film projectors, fixed assets investment in each digital cinema can be compressed to CNY 300,000 or even CNY 100,000, that is an 90 percent short than the industry average investment. So, all partners of Time Antaeus can afford to offer CNY 5 to CNY 10 tickets. "
However, the super low cost of Time Antaeus is not so impressive to China Film Digital Cinema Co., Ltd and Xinmei Digital Cinema Development Co., Ltd.
Jiang Defu, general manager of China Film Digital Cinema, says that the company has reached an agreement with US-based Alpha that will invest USD 30 million to help China Film Digital Cinema building digital cinemas.
"Once we get the approval from regulators, we will double our digital cinemas within this year. Time Antaeus is mainly focused on urban areas, but we are targeted at big cities, so we will not have direct competition with each other," says the general manager. So far China Film Digital Cinema claims 176 digital cinemas in major cities around the nation.
Vice general manager Liu Ming from Xingmei, says that the company now has 21 digital cinemas, with the most advanced projecting equipment imported from foreign countries. "For Time Antaeus' low-price projectors, our high-end equipment is unmatchable."
By Tinmin (tinmin2003@hotmail.com)
[USD 1 = CNY 8.06178552]
From dycj.ynet.com, Page 1, Monday, February 13, 2006
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