The theatre chain's profit slumped to 128 million rupees ($1.5 million) during the October-December quarter, from a profit of 1.66 billion rupees in the previous three months.

Since the merger of PVR and Inox closed in February last year, the results are not comparable year-over-year.

"Due to the Cricket World Cup hosted in India, the first half of the quarter had a muted start," PVR said in a statement.

Moreover, major film releases were also delayed in the cricket-crazy country due to the World Cup, while some Bollywood releases, such as 'Tiger 3', 'Sam Bahadur' and '12th Fail', delivered average or below-average box office collections.

Analysts had also said that the Hollywood movies, which account for 15%-20% of PVR's box office revenue, would be in short supply due to the strike in 2023.

As a result, its occupancy slipped to 25.2% in the quarter from 32.3% in the previous quarter.

That, combined with a roughly 26% declines in both ticket and food and beverage sales, resulted in a nearly 23% sequentially drop in overall revenue to 15.46 billion rupees.

PVR Inox's shares dropped 3% after the results. ($1 = 83.0000 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Navamya Ganesh Acharya in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema and Savio D'Souza)