Macau’s casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) momentum remains “alive” in December, with several investment analysts expecting growth of more than 7 percent year-on-year.
Wells Fargo Securities LLC said in a note on Monday that it estimates average daily revenues (ADR) in the first 18 days of December to have been in the range of MOP650 million (US$81.3 million) to MOP655 million.
“Based on checks through December 18 we estimate December Macau gaming revenues [to be] +8 percent to +11 percent year-on-year,” said analyst Cameron McKnight. The brokerage’s full month estimate implies daily revenues of between MOP625 million to MOP665 million for the remainder of the month.
Brokerage Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd put out a similar forecast also on Monday: “Assuming an ADR of MOP600 million to MOP640 million for the remainder of this month, December GGR would be in the range of MOP19.6 billion and MOP20.0 billion. This would represent a year-on-year increase of +7 percent to +9 percent.”
Sanford Bernstein’s analysts Vitaly Umansky, Zhen Gong and Yang Xie said the results of last week were “[circa] 5 percent over [the] similar period in 2015 (ADR of MOP570 million)”.
“Our channel checks indicate that both VIP and mass volume was down marginally on week-on-week basis and the low VIP luck factor also dragged the overall revenue,” they added.
Christopher Jones of the Buckingham Research Group Inc said the week ended December 18 was “in line” with the performance for the first 11 days of the month, keeping the “momentum alive and well”.
“Importantly, there is no indication of an impact to GGR performance from the recent reduction in Union Pay per transaction limit to MOP5,000,” said Mr Jones.
The Monetary Authority of Macao on December 9 introduced a limit of MOP5,000 or HKD5,000 per transaction for withdrawals in the city’s ATMs using bank cards issued by mainland China banks. The Macau government has said it does not expect the new ATM rules to negatively affect the city’s gaming industry.
Casino GGR was approximately MOP18.79 billion in November, representing a 14.4-percent increase on the prior-year period.
