GGRAsia – Macau GGR hits post-Covid non-holiday peak: JP Morgan

Macau GGR hits post-Covid non-holiday peak: JP Morgan

Jun 13, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Market-wide casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) in Macau reached last week its “highest non-holiday levels” since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, at around MOP530 million (US$65.7 million) per day. That is according to a note from JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd. The brokerage added however that full-month GGR should still stay behind the tallies recorded in April and May.

“Based on our checks, GGR for the first 11 days of June is estimated at MOP5.5 billion, or a daily run-rate of MOP500 million per day,” said analysts DS Kim and Mufan Shi in a note published on Monday.

They added: “This implies last week’s GGR run-rate improved quite a bit week-on-week to circa MOP530 million per day from MOP450 million in the past two to three weeks, printing the highest non-holiday levels since the pandemic.”

JP Morgan stated that a series of concerts by Hong Kong singer Jacky Cheung Hok-yau at the Venetian Macao casino resort starting from June 9, and the official opening ceremony on June 10 for the Karl Lagerfeld hotel at the Grand Lisboa Palace property, had “helped drive the weekly recovery”.

The brokerage forecast the “absolute level of GGR” would “likely soften in June given seasonality”. JP Morgan said it expected full-month revenue to be between MOP14.0 billion and MOP14.5 billion. Based on that estimate, June’s result would be below the monthly GGR tally of MOP15.57 billion recorded in May, and also below April’s MOP14.72-billion GGR result.

The JP Morgan analysts reaffirmed a prior comment that “quarter-to-date trends suggest casinos will see strong second-quarter results.”

They added that mass GGR and earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation, and amortisation would likely recover to “80-percent-plus and 65-percent-plus of pre- Covid-19 levels” in the second quarter.