AMC Entertainment Holdings Q3 Earnings Takeaways: 40 Million Moviegoers, Revenue Beat And More

Movie theatre operator and popular retail stock AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc AMC reported third quarter financial results after market close Monday. Here are the key highlights for investors.

What Happened: AMC reported third quarter revenue of $755.6 million, beating a street consensus of $708.3 million. Revenue was significantly higher than the $119.5 million reported in the third quarter last year with a significant number of theatres shut down.

AMC reported a loss of 44 cents per share, beating a street consensus target of a loss of 53 cents per share.

AMC had attendance of nearly 40 million in the third quarter, compared to 6.5 million in the year-over-year period. Attendance was split 26.7 million in the U.S. and 13.3 million in international markets.

The company ended the third quarter with 596 domestic theatres and 351 theatres in international markets. AMC has more than 10,600 movie screens globally.

“Thanks to an increasingly appealing film slate, rising COVID-19 vaccination counts, our commitment to robust health and safety protocols and our own greatly increased marketing activity, AMC’s theatres in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East safely welcomed back 40 million guests during the third quarter of 2021,” AMC CEO Adam Aron said.

Aron said the results in the third quarter were “well ahead of market expectations.”

Related Link: AMC Entertainment Q2 Earnings Takeaways: Transformation Quarter But Not Out Of The Woods 

What’s Next: Movie theater operators continue to report strong attendance figures for the month of October, something AMC highlighted in its press release.

“We are also encouraged by the results from the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2021,” Aron said. ”Our October theatre admissions revenues were the highest of any month since before the global pandemic forced the closure of our cinemas more than a year and a half ago.”

The company ended the third quarter with $1.8 billion in liquidity. AMC does not expect to borrow any additional money under existing credit lines in the next 12 months.

Aron highlighted a strong slate of movies on the calendar for the remainder of 2021 and into 2022.

The company’s CEO said there are still challenges ahead.

“We need to sell more tickets in future quarters than we did in the most recent quarter and adjusted EBITDA is still well below pre-pandemic levels.”

AMC Price Action: At publication, AMC shares are down 2.64% to $43.87 in after-hours trading Monday.

Photo: Valerie via Flickr