China’s entertainment industry underwent profound structural transformation in 2025. The “super Pareto principle” in the film market intensified, box office of offline performances approached that of the film market, and online audio-visual platforms accelerated AI layout and cross-scenario integration. Multi-dimensional data shows that entertainment consumption is upgrading from fragmented entertainment to “big-event consumption” and immersive experiences, with fundamental reshaping of capital logic, creative ecology and user habits.
Film market: 4.00% of films dominate 76.00% of box office, big-event consumption rewrites industry rules
China’s film market showed an extreme differentiation trend in 2025, with the “super Matthew effect” becoming the most prominent feature. According to the 2025 China Film Investment and Financing Report, the top 4.00% of films by box office contributed 76.00% of the total box office, a significant increase from 61.00% in 2024, while the number of films with box office exceeding 100.000 million yuan plummeted from 74 in 2024 to 48, and the mid-tier film market continued to shrink. This change stems from the transformation of film consumption into a “social interaction ritual”. Works such as Ne Zha 2 and Nanjing Photo Studio formed nationwide cultural events through social media, with their box office growth process becoming a “real-time live broadcast” of national concern. Cinema attendance has transcended entertainment itself and evolved into a social ritual of collective emotional resonance.
The capital structure has been restructured simultaneously. State-owned holding enterprises, listed film companies, internet platforms and filmmaker-owned enterprises have formed a collaborative investment ecosystem of four types of entities. Among them, state-owned enterprises participated in the production of 83.33% of domestic films with box office exceeding 100.000 million yuan, becoming the “ballast stone” of the market; listed companies took the lead in 40.00% of headlining films, focusing on IP sequels to reduce risks; internet platforms deeply participated in promotion and IP development by virtue of data advantages, with a participation rate of 93.33%. The investment logic has shifted from single box office betting to long-term IP value mining. The derivative income of Ne Zha 2 has exceeded the box office itself, and its overseas box office has broken through 1.000 billion yuan, becoming a new growth point of the industry.
Offline performances: Box office exceeds 60 billion yuan, sinking markets become new blue oceans
The offline entertainment market achieved explosive growth in 2025. The national box office of commercial performances reached 61.655 billion yuan, surpassing the total film box office for the first time. Among them, music performances contributed 29.694 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 90.00%. The concert market performed particularly brightly, with a single-category box office exceeding 26.000 billion yuan, doubling the total box office of offline performances in 2023. The market structure showed the characteristics of “saturation in the center and growth in the periphery”. While performance resources in first and second-tier cities tend to be saturated, third, fourth and below-tier cities have become new blue oceans. The Galaxy Left Bank Music Festival held in Ezhou, a fifth-tier city, attracted 60,000 music fans, directly driving the addition of 19 intercity train trips and significantly boosting the regional economy through derivative consumption.
Policy support and scenario integration have become the dual drivers of growth. Beijing launched a performance development subsidy of up to 5.000 million yuan, providing additional support for projects with overseas audiences accounting for more than 10.00%; various regions have undertaken market spillover effects through venue upgrades and integration of cultural and tourism resources, forming a diversified ecosystem of “performance + tourism” and “performance + consumption”. This growth trend confirms the transformation of entertainment consumption towards “immersive experiences”, with users more willing to pay for offline scenarios with strong interaction and high participation.
Online audio-visual: AI empowers cost reduction and efficiency improvement, cross-scenario layout breaks growth bottlenecks
Faced with industry growth pressure, online audio-visual platforms accelerated their strategic transformation in 2025. Leading platforms such as iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video have increased their investment in AI technology. Mango TV’s “large model” application coverage rate exceeded 93.00%, realizing full-chain empowerment of content production; iQiyi improved advertising conversion rate through self-developed AI large models, driving a 9.00% month-on-month growth in advertising revenue in the fourth quarter. Membership business remains the core pillar, but the growth logic has changed. Tencent Video maintained a year-on-year increase in the number of members with high-quality content such as Xian Ni and A Heartwarming Offer 7, while Mango TV built a differentiated advantage by launching 5,137 micro-short dramas through the “Dawang Plan”.
Cross-scenario integration has become a key measure for platforms to break through online boundaries. iQiyi launched a “small-scale, rapid iteration” offline park in Yangzhou, deeply integrating drama IP; Tencent Video created offline brands such as JUMP PARK Music Carnival to extend online content to offline experiences; Youku promoted a 11.10% year-on-year increase in users’ average daily usage time to 60 minutes through “online + offline” ecological integration. The overseas market has become a new growth pole. iQiyi’s overseas membership revenue increased by more than 30.00% year-on-year, with the growth rate rising to 40.00% in the second half of the year, demonstrating the global competitiveness of Chinese entertainment content.
Industry outlook: Technology and IP as dual drivers, high-quality development becomes consensus
From a global perspective, the global entertainment market size reached 2.7976 trillion US dollars in 2025, and is expected to exceed 22.0000 trillion US dollars by 2035, with a compound annual growth rate of 22.92%. Among them, digital consumption accounts for more than 64.00%, and mobile platforms drive 58.00% of the growth. As the core growth engine in the Asia-Pacific region, the Chinese market is showing three major trends: first, content production is transforming towards “fewer but better”, with big-event IPs and high-quality content becoming the core of competition; second, technology deeply empowers the industry, with new productive forces such as AI and VR/XR accelerating their implementation, driving the improvement of production efficiency and experience; third, consumption scenarios continue to integrate, blurring the boundaries between online and offline, forming a full-link entertainment ecosystem.
Industry experts point out that the essence of the transformation of the entertainment industry in 2025 is driven by both “pursuit of certainty” and “experience upgrading”. In an increasingly uncertain market environment, only by deepening the long-term value of IP, embracing technological innovation and building a flexible industrial network can we take the initiative in the differentiated pattern and promote the industry towards higher quality and more competitive development.