The year-on-year decline in Macau’s January casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) was primarly due to a “seasonality factor”, with a “slowdown” in the “beginning portions” of the Chinese New Year holiday period, which coincided with the end of the month. That is according to Macau’s recently-appointed Secretary for Economy and Finance, Tai Kin Ip (pictured in a file photo), in some of his first reported comments on the gaming industry, a cornerstone of the city’s commerce. The official’s brief includes oversight of the casino sector.
On the sidelines of a neighbourhood tour on Saturday, Mr Tai clarified that his reference to “seasonality” was because the lunar calendar-based Chinese New Year holiday this year began in late January, and runs into early February. In 2024, the Chinese New Year festive season was entirely in February.
China’s State Council has declared the mainland holiday – this time marking the Year of the Snake – as an eight-day period running from January 28 to Tuesday (February 4) inclusive.
The official flagged that he was “optimistic” about Macau’s general economic outlook for this year, based on what he termed the city’s “stable fundamentals”.
Macau’s January casino GGR fell by 5.6 percent year-on-year to just above MOP18.25 billion (US$2.27 billion). Judged sequentially, the January result was up 0.3 percent, according to official data released on Saturday by Macau’s casino regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
Macau’s January casino GGR fell short of investment-sector expectations, suggested respectively the brokerages JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd and Seaport Research Partners.
Seaport analyst Vitaly Umansky stated in a Sunday memo: “The eight-day Chinese New Year holiday… is an important sentiment driver for Macau,” among investors.
Though he added: “The actual holiday is often mixed in terms of results, with Chinese New Year 2019 representing only 2 percent of 2019 GGR and 2024 Chinese New Year representing 2.7 percent of 2024 GGR.”
Seaport estimated that during the eight days this time, Macau might generate approximately MOP800 million a day in casino GGR, or a total of MOP6.4 billion for the full holiday period. If the forecast were realised, that holiday season’s GGR would represent approximately 2.6 percent of Seaport’s GGR estimate for full-year 2025.
“We expect February to be slightly better than January, MOP18.5 billion (US$2.3 billion), up 0.1 percent year-on-year, [and] up 1.3 percent month-on-month.”
Mr Umansky added: “If our estimates come in, the combined January-February period would be down 2.8 percent year-on-year.”
