Global cinema ticket sales reached an all-time high of $34.7bn last year, with Australia the 9^th best performing international market with a box office haul of $1.2bn.

Globally, ticket sales were up 6% year-on-year in 2012, according to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

In 2011 ticket sales reached $32.6bn.

Australia has one of the world’s highest cinema admissions per capita with the $1.2bn taking putting Australia on par with Russia.

In Germany and South Korea cinema takings hit $1.3bn.

Damian Keogh, chief executive of Val Morgan, said: “Movies have a huge and growing influence on consumers and consumer culture.”

“As in home media continues to fragment and present growing challenges for brands with ad avoidance behaviour very much the norm rather than the exception, cinema is going from strength to strength.”

The number of digital screens worldwide has grown 41% year-on-year with digital screens now exceeding the number of analogue screens for the first time.

The growth means that more than two-thirds of the world’s 130,000 cinema screens are now digital.

Locally, more than 90% of screens are digital.

Keogh said digital screens removes cost-barriers for advertisers and means brands can get their ad to screen “in just a couple of days”.