Macau casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the third week of November was up nearly 25 percent week-on-week, estimated a Monday note from brokerage Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd.
The institution said the average daily rate for the relevant period was MOP242 million (US$30.2 million) versus MOP194 million in the prior week.
“The GGR could have been higher” – possibly by 35 percent – “if not impacted by the very low VIP hold,” said the memo from analysts Vitaly Umansky, Louis Li, and Kelsey Zhu.
Visitor volume to Macau during the analysed period had “held up” judged week-on-week, added the Bernstein analysts.
In terms of Covid-19 cases in mainland China – a phenomenon perceived as having dampened on occasion recently mainland consumer demand for trips to Macau – the brokerage observed that since November 16, Covid-19 reported infections had “largely dwindled, with daily local cases down to single digits, and only three to four provinces still reporting new local cases.”
Macau had 35,525 tourist arrivals on Friday (November 19), the highest up to that date since a number of Covid-19 cases reported locally beginning in late September, said on Saturday the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), adding that the build up to the Macau Grand Prix weekend helped the numbers.
Sanford Bernstein said in its Monday memo that its channel checks suggested November GGR to Sunday (November 21) inclusive was MOP4.7 billion, or about US$585 million, with month-to-date average daily rate of MOP224 million, or US$28 million.
The average daily rate for this November so far was down about 71 percent on November 2019, when the daily average was MOP763 million.
The November daily average to date was still however up about 59 percent sequentially from October this year’s daily average of MOP141 million, said the brokerage.
“Last week, VIP hold in Macau is likely to have been below 0.5 percent, or even negative, and is trending around 1.7 percent to 1.9 percent for the month, well below normal level of 3 percent, which has impacted negatively the average daily GGR figure,” wrote the Sanford Bernstein analysts.
The institution estimated November to date, the VIP average daily rolling volume was up about 80 percent month-on-month.
