PARIS: Thomson, a worldwide leader in video and film technologies, products and services, has announced the acquisition of Cinecolor Lab.
Thai company Cinecolor Lab is one of the premiere motion picture film laboratories and post-production facilities in the Australasian film and post-production markets.
The acquisition furthers Thomson's strategic goal of expanding the service and geographic opportunities offered by its content and network division to the filmmaking community worldwide.
Thomson Digital Media Solutions (DMS) senior executive V-P Lanny Raimondo was quoted in an official release saying, "We are committed to serving the needs of our growing customer base. The Australasian market will continue to expand over the next decade and we will respond to those opportunities by providing Technicolor's world renown services."
Raimondo explained, "Cinecolour has a strong management team, with exceptional engineers, and highly-skilled personnel - all of whom will be transitioning with the company. Cinecolour also has a great reputation with customers and they are an excellent fit within our overall long-term plans."
Thomson's strategic objectives for its content and network division are to expand its client base by broadening its service offering and increasing its geographical coverage globally. Establishing a platform for future growth in the Australasian market is a critical step towards this strategic goal, the release adds.
The Australasian market is expected to be a prime area of growth in laboratory and post-production services over the next decade. According to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) 40 per cent of the international theatrical market comes from the Asian-Pacific region of the world. This amounts to around $3.86 billion in 2002. The total international box office amounted to US $9.64 billion. From 2001 to 2002, the International box-office grew by approximately US $1.5 billion.
The release says, last year, the total output from the Asian market reached 532.9 million feet of film processed from the top seven producing countries - Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Malaysia, and Taiwan. In Thailand alone, production accounted for 42 per cent of this work, followed by Japanese production at 28 per cent.