According to JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific), Macau’s casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the first four days of February is estimated to be MOP 2.5 billion ($310 million), averaging MOP 625 million ($77,650,062) per day.
“The figure is comparable with January’s MOP624 million – which was already a strong beat – which is pretty impressive considering a pre-holiday seasonality ahead of Lunar New Year,” wrote analysts DS Kim, Mufan Shi, and Selina Li.
The Chinese New Year holiday period will commence from February 10th and will run up to February 17th. Official data shows that casino GGR in Macau rose by 67 percent year-on-year in January to MOP 19.34 billion ($233,007,739).
The JP Morgan team suggested Macau’s casino GGR across the first four days of February reflected mass-market GGR had “recovered to over 110 percent of pre-COVID levels”, while “VIP likely stayed around at mid-20s-percent of recovery”.
GGRAsia’s checks revealed that many luxury hotels in Macau’s casino resorts had no rooms available to the public for any nights during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday.
“Our checks on Chinese New Year indicate a very healthy level (essentially a record-high quality) of gaming patrons pre-booked for comped rooms,” the analysts noted.
The institution expects a daily GGR print of over MOP 650 million ($80,756,065) during the 8-day holiday period, representing an approximate recovery of 120% in mass GGR compared to 2019 Chinese New Year, including a lull period (first few days of very weak days).
Meanwhile, for the entire Financial Year 2024, JP Morgan’s outlook assumes that mass GGR will remain at current levels (112% of pre-COVID levels) with margins staying relatively flat from the fourth quarter of 2023.
As compared to pre-Covid 2019 levels, the 2023 National Day holiday witnessed a 72% recovery in revenue and an 87% recovery in visitation. Analysts noted that hotels under Sands China and Galaxy Entertainment Group are expected to perform better, with ADRs tracking 50% higher than last October’s Golden Week and 30% higher than the 2019 Lunar New Year.
Earlier this week, Citigroup raised its February GGR forecast for Macau to MOP 19.5 billion, expecting a run-rate acceleration to around MOP 900 million per day from February 12th to February 17th, the last six days of the Lunar New Year holiday period.
