CINEMA operator Palace Amusement Company Limited at the end of its last financial year not only hopped out of the red but also returned to delivering over a billion dollars in sales, fully recovering from the clutches of the novel coronavirus pandemic which placed previous earnings in intermission.

In its recently filed audited report for the year ended June 30, 2023, total revenues for the company amounted to $1.5 billion — 132 per cent or $870 million more than it recorded in 2022. Similarly, the company’s net profit rebounded to total $228 million at the end of the year, reversing losses of $260.7 million in 2022.

The group’s performance, driven by improved sales across its three main business segments which include: cinema activities (theatre operations and sale of confectionery items), film activities (purchase and rental of films throughout the Caribbean), and screen advertising activities — all showed vast improvement, significantly increasing by more than half of last year’s out-turns.

An assessment of cinema activities results shows Palace’s Carib 5 flagship theatre in Cross Roads Kingston continuing to drive the bulk of revenues which grew to $567.6 million after doing over $327 million in box office receipts and $229 million in confectionery sales, among other income. Its newest Sunshine Palace cinema in Portmore St Catherine followed, delivering over $380.3 million in revenues for the segment. The other two, Palace Cineplex and Multiplex cinemas in St Andrew and St James, respectively, further added to company’s revenues for the year, respectively contributing $202 million and $312 million.

The film activities segment, which also came in as another strong driver of revenue, delivered over $488.1 million for the year in comparison to the to $16.1 million earned under the screen advertising activities segment.

Palace, having withstood a number of forced closures, reduced cinema traffic, and suffering significant losses since the novel coronavirus pandemic, last saw revenues above the billion-dollar mark in 2019 when it achieved record results of over $1.1 billion in sales and $70.4 million in profit.

This was followed by revenues in subsequent years which totalled $919.8 million in 2020 with a loss of $99.6 million; 107.5 million in 2021 with a loss of $383 million; and $649 million in 2022 with a loss of $260.7 million. Negatively impacted by these performances in the last three years, Palace’s stock price, which also declined above 55 per cent in the pandemic year, for most of last year also traded below $1,000 after record trading of near $3,000 before the pandemic.

The company, having fully recovered from the pandemic’s effects, said it is now on the hunt to further improve its financial performance, reduce debt, add more blockbusters to its line-up as it looks to roll out new technologies, starting with the recent launch of its upgraded website and soon-to-come mobile app.

Bullish on its plans for future growth, the cinema operator, as it moves to enhance the show experience for patrons, has previously cited 4DX technology among the list of new technologies now being negotiated to later bring to customers.

“As we continue to explore growth we have also not ruled out on adding more cinemas — but this will only come after we have bettered our business financially,” Director and Marketing Manager Melanie Graham had told the Jamaica Observer in May.

The Business Observer, in further trying to get a reaction from the company’s management about its post-pandemic recovery and the change in its misfortunes, was not able to secure a comment as Graham said she was unable to provide information at that moment as she was tied down in an all-day board meeting.