Top Bollywood grossers in UAE/GCC for 2015

In the past couple of years with the digitization of films, we have witnessed a growth in terms of films being marketed, distributed and screened in overseas territories. With this market growing at an exponential rate we decided to analyze one of the major territories viz. the UAE/ GCC segment, that has fast become the highest contributor in terms of overseas box office collections.

The UAE/GCC box office is one of the prime territories for Bollywood with around 40% revenues coming from this territory alone for some of the big ticket releases that we see. In fact the influence of Bollywood is so strong in this circuit that even Hollywood movies feel strong competitive heat from their Bollywood counterpart when released alongside a major Bollywood film. The case in point being the recently release seventh installment in the Star Wars franchise, Star Wars: The Force Awakens (SWTFA) that went head to head in theatres with the Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol starrer Dilwale. Here, the sway held by Dilwale was so high that SWTFA was quite literally overshadowed at the UAE box office.

If compared in terms of numbers with reference to total number of screens and revenues generated therefrom, Dilwale seen a release across 52 screens and earned AED 11.37 million in its first seven days. On the other hand SWTFA released in 144 screens, aggregating AED 10.28 million in its first week, to take the second spot on the weekly box office rankings. Simultaneously, the Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra starrer Bajirao Mastani that was directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali pipped SWTFA in terms of per screen average collecting AED 9.8 million.

As a result of Bollywood releases outperforming their Hollywood counterparts, the number of screens dedicated to the new Star Wars movie in its second week after release was reduced by more than a third to just 91 screens.

Below is the table for the Top 4 at the UAE/GCC box office for 2015, what is interesting to note in the table is that, it is the Salman Khan starrer Bajrangi Bhaijaan holds the no.1 spot for the year 2015 as well as All Time Highest collections for any Bollywood movie in that region with collections being pegged at AED 36.72 million.

Rank	Movie	Overseas Collections (in AED million)	Overseas Collections (in INR cr.)
1	Bajrangi Bhaijaan	36.72 (All time highest)	66.09 cr.
2	Dilwale	23.5	42.3 cr.
3	Prem Ratan Dhan Payo	14.18	25.52 cr.
4	Bajirao Mastani	9.8	17.64 cr.

Disclaimer:
The Box Office figures are compiled from various sources and our own research. The figures can be approximate and Bollywood Hungama

does not make any claims about the

authenticity of the data. However, they are adequately indicative of the box-office performance of the film(s).