Banking group Jefferies thinks Macau’s casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) can reach MOP246.41 billion (US$30.7 billion) for full-year 2025. It has raised its fourth-quarter growth forecast on the back of entertainment events, “incentives for players” from casinos, and the impact on Macau’s premium and VIP play, of “wealth creation” from strong regional stock market performance.
In a Thursday memo, Jefferies said it now projects Macau’s GGR for the three months to December 31, to grow 13.3 percent year-on-year to MOP67.9 billion. Its previous forecast was 6.6 percent improvement.
Were the full-year tally to reach MOP246.41 billion, it would be an 8.7-percent increase on 2024’s MOP226.78 billion GGR.
October’s GGR reached MOP24.09 billion; up circa 16-percent year-on-year and the best monthly result since October 2019. Last month “significantly outperformed” market expectation of an 11 percent gain, and also exceeded Jefferies’ own 6.1 percent forecast, the memo noted. The positive trend continued this month, said the institution.
“For the first nine days of November, momentum remained strong with ADR [average daily revenue] at MOP711 million a day, up 16 percent year-on-year,” wrote Jefferies analysts Anne Ling and Jingjue Pei.
They added: “A recovery in stock market (A share and Hang Seng Index), private equity investment, plus an increase in IPOs [initial public offerings] has helped wealth creation. These support GGR growth especially, on premium and VIP segments.”
For the fourth quarter, Jefferies expected Macau casino operators Sands China Ltd and Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd to “continue gaining share”, via new facilities that help in “attracting players during festive seasons”.
The institution estimated Sands China could record a 25.0-percent market share in fourth-quarter gaming revenue, which would be a 1.10 percentage points gain sequentially. It thought Galaxy Entertainment’s fourth-quarter market share could reach nearly 22.3 percent, i.e., 1.88 percentage points up on the previous quarter.
“We expect the disruption on the closing of the satellite casinos and revamping Grand Lisboa and Hotel Lisboa will impact SJM’s [SJM Holdings Ltd] market share negatively in the fourth quarter by circa 1 to 2 percentage points,” suggested the Jefferies analysts.
SJM Resorts Ltd – the SJM Holdings entity possessing the group’s Macau gaming rights – announced on Thursday the scheduled closure of satellite venue Casino Casa Real at the end of the day on November 21. That will mark the fourth closure closure recently among nine satellites licensed by SJM Resorts.
SJM Holdings’ phased satellite venue closure started in late July with Casino Grandview, followed by Casino Emperor Palace on October 30, and Casino Legend Palace on Wednesday.
Jefferies said the SJM group is “confident” of keeping for itself, most of the estimated 5-percent share of GGR market-wide that has been held by the satellite sector. Though the institution said – citing the company’s management – there might be “circa 1 percent dilution during the transition in the short term”.
