China's box office posted a 51 percent growth in the first quarter of 2016, according to Chinese state radio on Sunday.

China's total ticket sales attained a record-breaking high of 14.5 billion yuan ($2.24 billion) in the first three months of the year, thanks to the nearly 7 billion yuan haul over the Lunar New Year holiday last February, the China National Radio reported.

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Local films accounted for over 70 percent of the total ticket sales. One of the highest grossing Chinese movies was Stephen Chow's The Mermaid, which contributed more than 3 billion yuan. As for foreign-made films, animated movie Zootopia remained on the top spot with 1.3 billion yuan.

Meanwhile, even though the government has put restrictions of only up to 34 international films per year, Hollywood has grown dependent of China's increasingly expanding movie market. On February, China's ticket sales have surpassed the United States for the first time, state media news agency Xinhua reported.

However, claims of ticketing fraud is questioning the recent sales data as over 100 private investors descended from their Shanghai offices on Thursday demanding they want their invested money for the marital arts movie IP Man back. The films' distributor has earlier admitted to purchasing 56 million yuan worth of tickets to boost sales and to fabricating over 7,600 screening of which they claimed to generate 32 million yuan.

Xinhua reported that Beijing Max Screen purchased discounted tickets in bulk from different cinema chains, which then scheduled "ghost screenings" after midnight at highly priced rates.

Tagschina, Box Office, China box office, sales, revenue