Los Angeles  - Cinemagoers around the world spent a record 28.1 billion dollars on movie tickets in 2008, with a record 65 per cent of the total coming from outside the US, the Motion Picture Association of America said Tuesday.

The figures represented a 5-per-cent increase over the 2007 total, even as the performance of the US box office was disappointing. The number of tickets sold at movie theaters in the US and Canada in 2008 declined 2.6 per cent from 2007, but because of higher prices gross receipts were up by 1.7 per cent.

Elsewhere in the world, movie receipts increase by 7 per cent to 18.3 billion dollars. The number of films released in 2008 increased slightly from the previous year to 610 compared to 599 in 2007.

"Movies can still be counted on to boost people's spirits as well as the economy," said Dan Glickman, chairman and chief executive of the movie trade group, in announcing the figures at ShoWest, the US movie industry's annual convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.