For most art house titles or low-budget films, it has been an ongoing struggle to make it to the big screen, since cinema operators still prefer to show big-budget commercial blockbusters.

Gao says this situation limits the options for audiences, despite the rising demand for more diverse content from Chinese moviegoers.

Although urban cinemas have more than 60,000 screens across the country, it's still difficult to watch a film in a theater in China's most far-flung regions.

As of April 2019, among the 2,876 county-level administrative regions in China, 880 only had one cinema, 151 had no cinemas at all, and more than 70 percent of the country's population had never had the experience of entering a physical cinema, according to Gao.

"I was impressed to read a report that suggested that most Tibetans own a smartphone," he says.

Earlier this year, when the movie Kelsang Metok was streamed via the Smart Cinema app in Markam county, Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region, it made a splash among locals.

Yet it is unlikely that the new venture will prompt audiences back to the cinema given the unprecedented expansion of mobile internet, and Gao predicts that Smart Cinema will reach 1 billion smartphone customers within the space of five years.

Contact the writer at xufan@chinadaily.com.cn