Two of China's largest movie ticketing services called Gewara and Beijing Weiying technology (also known as Wepiao) are going to merge. These two services are currently among at the top five players in the online ticketing business in the country.

This move by the two companies will likely bring them next to market leader Maoyan.

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After both companies merge, both brands are expected to still remain in operation. The online ticketing business has been growing rapidly in the past two years and now account for 70% of ticket sales in the country.

Chinese movie ticketing service Weiying was founded by Tencent in 2014. Gewara is also in ticketing business but it is older and more specialized than Weiying. The company is also more experienced and has come under competitive pressure from the newcomers into sector.

Huayi, Baidu (Nuomi) and Alibaba (Taobao Movie) also have companies in the sector. Recently, Alibaba Pictures announced plans of acquiring Guangdong Yueke Software Engineering, while also seeing ticketing businesses transferred from its Alibaba parent company.

Ticketing companies such as Maoyan, Gewara, Weiying and other in the sector have been rated by market researchers differently. According to Credit Suisse, Maoyan ranked in first place with 34%, followed by Gewara with 22%, then Wepiao with 8%, lastly Mtime and Wanda. Internet researcher BigData also ranked Maoyan first followed by Nuomi, Wepiao and Taobao.

China's theatrical box office was worth $6.3 billion (RMB40 billion) in the first 11 months this year.

Tagschinese movies, gewara, weiying, two chinese company merge, gewara and weiying, gewara and weiying to merge, maoyan, huayi