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RICHARDSON, Texas (Oct. 30, 2007) – India-based Pyramid Saimira Theatre, Ltd., has planted the Bollywood flag in North America and plans to make South Asian films as familiar in major U.S. and Canadian cities as the latest Oscar winners.

The vanguard of Pyramid’s foray here is in Texas with the acquisition of FunAsiA, which operates four multi-screen theater and entertainment complexes in Houston and the Dallas suburbs of Irving and Richardson. Pyramid says it will continue to market itself under the FunAsiA name and act swiftly to expand its network to other major markets with significant Asian populations.

Pyramid, the largest theater chain in India, caters to South Asians, or Desis – persons of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan origin or descent.

There are plenty of customers with those ethnic backgrounds to fill the company’s theater seats. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 11.9 million U.S. residents, 4.2 percent of the 2000 population, have Asian heritage. That’s a 72 percent increase over 1990’s count, a huge surge compared to an overall 13 percent increase in the U.S. population.

Depending on the nationalities included, estimates for the South Asian population in America ranges from about 2.3 million to 2.7 million. It’s considered the sixth-largest and fastest-growing ethic U.S. population. The largest concentrations of this ethnic group are in California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Texas.

To the north, Statistics Canada reports that there are nearly 1 million South Asians, or 3 percent of the total population, in that country.

Asian Indians have higher wealth and education levels than any other multicultural market in the United States with an estimated buying power of $76 billion. At $63,669, median household income for Asian Indians is 25 percent higher than the national average of $38,885.

Pyramid (NSE: PSTL and BSE: 532791 and SGX:XS0306488890) is a nearly USD$250 million Indian company that is part of that nation’s fast-growing $7.8 billion entertainment and media industry that is projected to expand at a 19 percent compounded annual rate and reach $18.6 billion by 2010. It operates 703 screens worldwide with a seating capacity of over 435,000.

Typically, Pyramid acquires theaters and invests in upgrades to provide audiences a world-class viewing experience. This includes a new initiative to transmit and project films in an all-digital format. These technology upgrades are bringing to ethnic-oriented theaters an environment widely enjoyed in mainstream movie houses.

In the late 1990s a cinema building boom driven, in part, by theater operators eager to offer the new digital formats to patrons, triggered a bust in the movie exhibition business.

“In the 1999 to 2001 timeframe, 13 sizable U.S. theater chains landed in bankruptcy, a casualty of audience demand for state-of-the-art facilities and overexpansion of theater circuits,” notes Marketing to Moviegoers: A Handbook.

U.S. screens soared from 17,590 in 1980 to an interim peak of 37,396 in 2000, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. After two years of decline, the U.S. screen count again began growing, reaching 39,688 in 2006.

Pyramid officials say there is plenty of room for growth in the Asian market niche and with disciplined management, they plan to avoid the overextension that created problems for other operators.

 The FunAsiA acquisition launches Pyramid into a new format that goes beyond movie exhibition to include complexes that many South Asians consider more of a community center.

FunAsiA complexes include South Asian music dance floors, restaurants, a community banquet and event hall, and seminar and conference rooms for weddings, receptions, concerts, and other community events.  The company provides free activities, such as monthly CPR classes, to the community. FunAsiA movie auditoriums – with seating capacity ranging from about 300 to more than 1,100 – also include a stage and lighting systems to accommodate live cultural programming or corporate events.

Up to 20 percent of FunAsiA special event business is for non-Asian customers, executives say. Hispanics make up about 15 percent of that by using FunAsiA for popular events such as weddings and Quinceañeras, the celebration of a girl’s 15^th birthday similar to debutante balls or “sweet 16” parties.

FunAsiA’s video-matchmaking service enables couples located thousands of miles apart to see and speak with each other while not divulging private information like telephone numbers or e-mail addresses. This is a popular service among Desis, who are often paired in arranged marriages.

On top of that, the company operates FunAsiA radio in Dallas, KHSE-AM 700, which is is broadcast across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and streamed over the Internet; and DesiPages, a thick, glossy monthly magazine distributed free throughout South Asian communities in DFW and Houston.

John Hamid, a Pakistani with family also in India, says he, his two brothers and an Indian friend came up with the idea for FunAsiA in 2002. "We thought, 'Why can't all people from Pakistan and India be good friends since they share the same culture?'" So they assembled doctors, engineers, accountants and other professionals to invest in the dream. This United Nations of 47 founders come from 11 countries including Bangladesh, Canada, India, Iran, Mexico, Pakistan, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Bringing together sometimes disparate ethnic groups under one roof might seem a challenge, but FunAsiA manages to blend elements from all the region’s cultures without conflict.

Take the signs above the entrances to the three movie theaters in its Richardson and Irving centers, for example. Each is named after a character in the 1977 Indian smash hit “Amar Akbar Anthony.” In the film, three brothers are separated in childhood, grow up in three different homes and adopt three different religions, one Hindu, one Muslim and the other Christian. A reunited family provides a happy ending. The film is an example of the genre that is hugely popular among South Asians and is now a mainstay of movies shown there and abroad.

 “Bollywood Mania” has swept the United States, making films from India more popular than movies from any other nation, according to the U.S. State Department. Indian productions earn about $100 million a year in theater screenings, video and soundtrack sales, reports the website Internet Movie Database.

Bollywood, the nickname for the Indian film industry centered in Bombay (now known as Mumbai) has eclipsed Hollywood as the world’s movie capital, churning out productions at the rate of 800 per year – more than double the number of feature films made in the United States.

The appetite for indigenous films is such that 14 million Indians cue up to pay the equivalent of a day’s wages ($1 to $3) to see a Bollywood production each day. The studios in India and the United States rake in 95 percent of their revenues through domestic sales, the only two countries in the world that even come close to that rate. By comparison, domestic film revenues account for only 35 percent in France, 33 percent in Japan and 12 percent in Britain, according to 2005 data published by two scholars, David Waterman and Sang-Woo Lee.

Indian films aren’t the only movies screened at FunAsiA theaters, however, with original productions being offered from Malaysia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and many other countries of the region. Pyramid executives are counting on NRIs, or non-resident Indians, and other South Asians to flock to their FunAsiA entertainment centers to get their fix on homegrown films.

“Bollywood films are being shown in American and British theaters on a more and more frequent basis. These theaters have become community foci for the South Asian communities around the world. Though separated by a vast distance from home, South Asians have found Bollywood films to be a great way of staying in touch with their culture and their fellow South Asians,” says Matt Rosenberg, a geographer and author.

Most Indian movies follow a formula called “masala,” after the Hindi word for a mix of spices. At three to four hours long, most U.S. audiences would consider them epics, but Desis can’t get enough. Like 1930s Hollywood spectaculars, “masalas” usually include dozens of musical numbers with hundreds of dancers; big stars; a boy-meets-girl storyline (without sex, or even kissing); and lots of action (but no bloodshed). There’s an intermission and, always, a happy ending.

While Sony, Warner Bros. and Disney have all made overtures to the massive Indian movie market, U.S. productions are a mere flick on the subcontinent’s screens. Only “Titanic” has ever made India’s top five list of favorites.