PVR and INOX merged at the Covid trough to become India's cinema giant

On March 27, 2022, as Indian cinemas were still recovering from pandemic shutdowns and Bollywood's box-office slump, PVR and INOX Leisure — the country's top two multiplex operators — announced a merger to create a chain of more than 1,500 screens. Both had spent two years of closures burning cash, and streaming was widely painted as the death of theatrical windows; the two families behind the chains decided the rational response was to combine rather than discount.

The structure made the two sides equals rather than winner and prey. INOX shareholders received three PVR shares for every ten INOX shares, the combined entity was named PVR INOX, Ajay Bijli became managing director, INOX Group chairman Pavan Kumar Jain took the non-executive chairman's seat, and INOX's promoters ended up with 16.7% of the merged company against PVR promoters' 10.6%.

Approvals took eleven months: exchanges cleared the scheme in June 2022, shareholders in October 2022, and the Mumbai bench of the NCLT approved it on January 12, 2023. The scheme became effective on February 6, 2023, with a record date of February 17 for allotting PVR INOX shares to INOX shareholders, and old screens kept their own branding while new ones opened as PVR INOX.

Analysts counted the merged company at roughly 1,650 screens — the world's fifth-largest listed multiplex chain — with about 50% of India's multiplex screens and a combined 42% box-office share for Hindi and English films, plus ₹1,500 crore of food-and-beverage sales that made it a fast-food giant in its own right.

About 1,650 screens — the world's fifth-largest listed multiplex operator — roughly half of India's multiplex screens and 42% of Hindi and English box office.

Two pandemic-hit chains merging removed the discounting and property-bidding war that each would otherwise have fought alone.

An all-stock merger with balanced board seats let the Jain family exit control without a public auction of their company.

The combined ₹1,500-crore food-and-beverage business and screen network gave pricing power with studios and landlords.

Growth shifted from killing each other in big cities to opening screens together in tier III, IV and V cities.

When a demand shock shrinks an industry, the two market leaders merging costs less than the price war that would follow — consolidating capacity beats defending share in a market with fewer customers.

By March 2023 the merged PVR INOX operated about 1,650 screens as the world's fifth-largest multiplex chain, and management planned to add around 200 screens a year, with roughly 44% of new screens in southern India. As of May 2025 the chain ran 1,743 screens across 352 properties in 111 cities of India and Sri Lanka.