Brokerage JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd estimates – based on its own checks – that casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) in Macau for the first 19 days of March reached MOP6.80 billion (US$845.1 million), or MOP357 million a day.
“This also implies that last week’s run-rate improved week-on-week to over MOP370 million a day – versus MOP350 million a day in the first two weeks of March, amidst soft seasonality during the ‘Two Sessions’ – [and] back in-line with the first two months of the year,” wrote analysts DS Kim and Mufan Shi.
The “Two Sessions” mention was a reference to the recently-concluded meetings in Beijing of respectively the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, attended by top officials, community leaders and business people from around the country.
The JP Morgan analysts added: “The month-to-date run-rate represents an approximately 45-percent recovery versus pre-Covid-19 levels for headline GGR, in turn suggesting mass GGR probably recovered to 60 percent to 70 percent of pre-Covid-19 levels, in-line with recent trends.”
Such performance was “all within expectations, but still quite encouraging,” the brokerage added.
February GGR fell by 10.8 percent month-on-month, to MOP10.32 billion but was up 33.1 percent year-on-year.
