The number includes spending at theaters and to buy and rent movies (on discs, pay TV, and digitally) in 37 countries. It’s up $1.3B vs 2011 according to the tally out today from the IHS Screen Digest Cross Platform Movie Market Monitor. The increase indicates that global consumer spending for movies “is recovering after declines across 2008 and 2009, with spending forecast to continue to rise by 2 to 3 percent every year from 2013 to 2016,” IHS says. North America is still the No. 1 region, accounting for 41% of worldwide movie spending, or $80 per capita. But much of the increase is coming from Asian and Pacific countries which accounted for 25% of worldwide movie spending last year, and in 2016 likely will pass Western Europe, now at 26%, to become the second-largest region for movie spending. “With new cinema construction in markets such as China driving increased movie transactions, coupled with the popularity of higher-priced premium content, the amount of money that Asia-Pacific consumers spend on going to the cinema is rising rapidly,” IHS says. Last year consumers in the region spent $10B at theaters, a 12% increase vs 2011. Theaters also were strong in other regions as worldwide spending at box offices increased 7% to $33.4 billion in 2012.

But spending to buy and rent movies on discs declined 3% to $23.7B and is expected to keep falling. About 39% came from consumers buying and renting discs, but IHS expects the market share for physical media to decline to 29% by 2016. Non-physical alternatives aren’t growing fast enough to compensate. Consumers spent $4.9B last year to buy and rent movies on digital platforms.

For more estimates listed by title, see box office results here...