In the first half of 2016, China’s box office was up 21% from the previous year. While this is a leap in the positive direction,  the figure is actually lackluster compared to box office numbers in China from recent years. Nevertheless, over the past five years, the Chinese box office has grown at a super fast clip.

In the first quarter of 2016, China's box office jumped an astonishing 50 percent, hitting 14.49 billion yuan (roughly 2.2 billion US dollars) compared to the 9.66 billion yuan ($1.4 billion US dollars) of 2015. In February alone, the China market totalled more than 1 billion US dollars. The huge gains were mainly fueled by a trio of local blockbusters released during the Chinese New Year holiday: Stephen Chow's The Mermaid, The Monkey King 2, and From Vegas to Macau 3.

The Mermaid

But from April to June of this year, ticket sales decreased to 1.51 billion US dollars -- down 4.6 percent from the figure in the second quarter of 2015. The last time China's box office experienced such a drop was in the first quarter of 2011.

If you combine the two quarters, the total growth rate fell to 21 percent for the first half of this year. That would be a phenomenal rate of expansion for any other major film territory, but for China, it marks a considerable slowdown from 2015's full-year growth rate of 48.7 percent. The box office hit $6.78 billion last year, up from $4.82 billion in 2014.

Zootopia

In the first half of 2016, local Chinese films accounted for 53.1 percent of  the box office  --whereas imported films took a majority of the 53.2 percent share in the first six months of 2015.

In July, more than 40 new productions will be released, including blockbusters such as Hong Kong police thriller "Cold War II", which hit the big screen on July 8th. Business insiders hope the market will see a boom during the summer holiday. And this will be key for the box office in the second half of the year.