Demand for Macau gambling from February 5 onward – i.e., post the lunar new year holiday season – has been “better than feared”, according to a Monday memo from JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd.
“GGR [gross gaming revenue] stabilised after lunar new year,” wrote analysts DS Kim, Mufan Shi, and Selina Li.
But full-year Macau GGR “may only grow at low single digits by around 1 percent to 4 percent year-on-year for full-year 2025,” added the institution.
That was “lower” than sell-side analysts’ consensus of “around 5 percent growth” this year, said the brokerage.
GGR for February is likely to be in the range of MOP18.3 billion (US$2.28 billion) to MOP19.4 billion, which in year-on-year terms would be in the range of a 1-percent decrease up to 5-percent growth.
“Post-lunar new year GGR turned out to be better-than-feared at MOP725 million per day thanks to solid ‘tail-end’ demand, somewhat offsetting the weakness from lunar new year,” the analysts added.
The latter weakness was relative to investor expectation, as Macau casinos still managed to generate MOP900 million per day for February 1 to 5, according to a JP Morgan’s estimate, based on its industry checks.
The mainland China authorities designated January 28 to February 4 inclusive as the lunar new year holiday time there, a period also sometimes referred to by analysts as ‘Chinese New Year (CNY) Golden Week’.
JP Morgan said the first nine days of February generated GGR of MOP7.4 billion, “within our earlier forecasts of MOP800 million to MOP850 million”.
“Net-net, the month to date [GGR] run-rate remains within expectations, albeit being on the lower-end,” said the institution.
