"The most crucial reason is that more viewers prefer to go to cinemas to watch giant screen titles for better visual and auditory effects," says Ou Wanyong, an analyst at Entgroup.

"The diversity of movie genres and better knowledge of technology are luring more people to buy tickets."

Last year, as many as 830 million tickets were sold. The past six months witnessed about 560 million admissions in theaters, triggering a 45.9 percent rise from the same period in 2014. Entgroup predicts at least 1.1 billion admissions by the end of this year.

To date, there are nearly 28,000 screens at more than 5,600 cinemas across the mainland. The figures are expected to increase mainly in third-and fourth-tier cities, with the mainland likely to have more than 2,000 new screens by December.

Once major entertainment hubs－Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou－are today no longer the only box-office trendsetters. Chinese in their 20s who are from smaller cities, are also adding to ticket sales as their incomes rise, some industry insiders said at the recent Shanghai International Film Festival.

Entgroup, which collected data from March to May, says that Chinese between ages 15 and 24, accounted for 32.2 percent of the moviegoing population for that period, and those between 25 and 34 comprised another 32.9 percent. More than half of the moviegoers earned a monthly income of 3,000-6,000 yuan, according to Entgroup.

Based on the first six months' performance and past years' growth rates, Entgroup estimates that 2015 will see a record-breaking income of 40 billion yuan at the Chinese box office.

Last year, the figure was 29.6 billion yuan, up 36 percent from 2013.

The figures act more like a double-edged sword－inspiring but also challenging.

Zhang Zhao, CEO of Le Vision Pictures, reveals that his company devised a strategy to tailor movies for target audiences on the mainland.

His Beijing-based company invested in the upcoming youth romance Tiny Times 4－the fourth installment of a 1.3 billion yuan franchise－because of the popularity of Guo Jingming, the director and best-selling author of the namesake novel on which the movies are based.

Pointing to Hollywood's advantages in technology and big budgets, Zhang says that they are able to win global markets with high-profile cast members and spectacular screen settings. Still, that's not easy, Zhang adds. Chinese moviemakers should first get to know what local audiences want to watch and accordingly customize productions for target groups.