CreditSights Inc says that while casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) improvements in the Macau market relative to 2019 have “moderated”, it still expects to see “incremental growth in market wide GGR … on the back of ongoing increases” in inbound visitor numbers and “steady spend” per visitor.
“While we expect to see additional growth for the remainder of 2024, year-on-year trends have decelerated as the recovery matures,” stated CreditSights, a division of the Fitch group, in a Wednesday report about the outlook for Macau gaming.
The institution expects full-year 2024 GGR in Macau to recover to between “75 percent to 80 percent of 2019 levels, or circa US$28 billion at the mid-point, up 24 percent year-on-year”.
Macau’s casino GGR for calendar year 2023 stood at MOP183.06 billion (US$22.85 billion), up 333.8 percent year-on-year, after travel and other Covid-19-related restrictions were lifted in January last year.
In the six months to June 30, Macau’s GGR stood at just over MOP113.75 billion, up 41.9 percent from the prior-year period, but 23.9 percent below the same cumulative period in 2019, according to official data.
The city received an aggregate of nearly 16.73 million visitors in the first half of 2024, about 82.5 percent of the same period in 2019, showed preliminary data from the Macao Government Tourism Office. The overall figure represented an average of 91,918 arrivals per day during the period.
According to CreditSights, second-quarter GGR in Macau “only modestly improved to 77 percent of second-quarter 2019 levels, from circa 75 percent of first-quarter 2019 levels in the first quarter of 2024”.
“We attribute this to the near extinction of junket-promoters which has meaningfully impacted the recovery for VIP GGR,” observed the institution.
“Since coming out of Covid we’ve seen a quicker recovery for the mass market, which now represents the majority of Macau’s GGR,” it added.
VIP baccarat produced revenue of just above MOP13.31 billion between April and June this year, accounting for a 23.6-percent share of Macau casino GGR in the period, according to data from the city’s gaming regulator.
“Among the casino operators in Macau, we view MGM China Holdings Ltd as the biggest winner coming out of Covid,” stated CreditSights.
It added: “The company has benefited from a meaningful increase in market share (versus 2019), partly reflecting a higher table game allotment from the recent concession renewal [in early 2023].”
