MUMBAI: India’s shock first-round exit from World Cup cricket last week has brought audiences back to Bollywood box offices after a sluggish start to the year, analysts said.

Audiences have risen for three movies -- “Namastey London”, “Traffic Signal” and “Honeymoon Travel Pvt Ltd” -- since the cricket-mad nation was knocked out last weekend, they said.

Crowds are “coming back to the movies (for the newly released 'Namastey London') with the World Cup season over for India,” said movie trade analyst Vinod Mirani.

Other movies released earlier this year like “Traffic Signal” and “Honeymoon Travel” were also seeing bigger audience numbers, said another analyst Taran Adarsh.

Bollywood's first quarter performance this year has been dismal with 24 movies failing at the box office, Adarsh said.

“The industry has suffered a loss of Rs550 million ($12.5 million) between January-March this year,” Adarsh said.—AFP