Banking group Jefferies now expects Macau’s casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) to reach MOP240.00 billion (US$30.00 billion), down 2.0 percent from its previous estimate of MOP245.0 billion, and in line with the local government’s estimates.
“Post fourth-quarter 2024 results, and based on January/February trend, we revisited our GGR model and each operators’ market share,” said the institution in a Friday memo.
“January-February industry GGR were flat, and the CNY [Chinese New Year] holiday has shown a longer and stronger tail effect versus previous years,” it added.
Casino GGR in the first two months of 2025 stood at nearly MOP38.00 billion, up 0.5 percent on the same period in 2024, according to official data.
Jefferies stated: “We lower our 2025 GGR estimates by 2 percent to MOP240 billion, 5.8 percent year-on-year growth and in line with the government’s target, based on year-to-date performance.”
“For March to December, we expect GGR growth to catch up and grow 6.9 percent year-on-year,” it added.
“Our estimate is 2-percent higher than market consensus as we expect mass GGR to grow 6.9 percent,” said the banking group.
Regarding GGR market share in 2025 and 2026, Jefferies expects Sands China Ltd and Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd to “increase” their respective shares.
“However, as visitor trend year-to-date was not as high as expected, we thus slow the pace of Sands China/Galaxy Entertainment’s market share gain,” observed the institution.
Jefferies expects Sands China’s market share to increase to 25.1 percent by 2026, from 2024’s circa 24.1 percent; while that of Galaxy Entertainment “will increase to 19.3 percent by 2026,” from 2024’s 18.8 percent.
SJM Holdings Ltd is forecast to lose approximately 0.8 percentage points of market share by 2026, dropping to 12.4 percent.
