GGRAsia – Macau GGR post Golden Week beats expectations: JP Morgan

Macau GGR post Golden Week beats expectations: JP Morgan

Oct 14, 2024 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Macau’s gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the first 13 days of October reached MOP11.0 billion (US$1.37 billion), averaging MOP846 million per day, according to a Monday note from JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd, citing industry checks.

Despite slowdown following the robust trading during the October Golden Week holiday, last week’s daily run-rate was MOP643 million per day. That remained more than 10-percent higher than September’s daily run-rate of MOP575 million, and on par with August’s MOP637 million, wrote analysts DS Kim, Mufan Shi and Selina Li.

In a note published last week, JP Morgan had stated that the daily run-rate of Macau’s casino GGR for October 1 to October 6 – all within China’s seven-day National Day holiday season – was estimated at just above MOP1.08 billion, the highest level in five years since the comparable October Golden Week holiday in 2019.

The brokerage highlighted in its latest memo that demand for the month-to-date suggested full-October GGR could reach MOP22.0 billion, equating to a daily run rate of more than MOP700 million. This would exceed earlier market expectations, which had predicted GGR between MOP20 billion and MOP21 billion for the whole of October.

“This should at least limit the downside risks to fourth-quarter consensus,” the note stated.

JP Morgan’s analysis suggested the latest data showed mass-market GGR had recovered to approximately 130-percent of pre-Covid-19 levels, while VIP gaming had reached around 30 percent of its pre-pandemic figures.

These figures “meaningfully” surpassed the third quarter’s recovery rates of 110 percent and 25 percent, respectively.

While the increase had been buoyed by a particularly strong October Golden Week, the recovery in gaming revenue so far this quarter was “encouraging”, especially after two consecutive quarters of pull-back, the JP Morgan team said.

Looking ahead, the firm indicated that investors would be closely monitoring whether the above-seasonal-norm momentum could be sustained through the remainder of the month and quarter. Macau casino company management calls during third-quarter earnings season, which begins later this month, would be “a good starting point,” the note said.