GGRAsia – Macau GGR to June 18 at US$1.2bln, showbiz helps: JPM

Macau GGR to June 18 at US$1.2bln, showbiz helps: JPM

Jun 19, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Macau’s daily run rate of casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) may have improved by about 7.5 percent last week, compared to the week before that, with helpful factors possibly including casino-industry concerts attracting the “right” kind of crossover customer. That is according to a Monday memo from JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd.

“It appears the Jacky Cheung concert [series] at Sands’ Venetian [Macao] continues to attract the right type of – read ‘high-value’ – players, including those from the database of Sands’ sister property Marina Bay Sands,” wrote analysts DS Kim and Mufan Shi.

They added that this “in turn helps to lift overall industry GGR” in Macau.

Jacky Cheung Hok-yau, a Hong Kong singer and actor, has been booked for a series of 12 concerts from June 9 to July 2 at the Cotai Expo at Sands China Ltd’s Venetian Macao casino resort on Cotai.

The brokerage also referred to several concerts in May from South Korean K-pop group Blackpink, at Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd’s new arena at Galaxy Macau; and a series of 14 concerts across May and the first half of June by Cantopop artist Leon Lai Ming, at Studio City, a casino resort promoted by Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd.

JP Morgan stated: “These entertainment events… do seem to move the needle for gaming business in Macau – at least thus far – which bodes well for Macau’s mass business to recover well beyond pre-Covid levels, in our view.”

JP Morgan said that based on its own checks, Macau-market GGR for the first 18 days of June was estimated at MOP9.5 billion (US$1.18 billion), or a daily run-rate of MOP527 million.

“This implies last week’s GGR run-rate improved further to circa MOP570 million per day, versus circa MOP530 million per day a week ago,” wrote the analysts.

This represented “another highest non-holiday GGR since the pandemic… beating even May’s run-rate of MOP502 million per day”.

Month-to date trends “suggest our June GGR forecast of MOP14 billion to MOP14.5 billion – or MOP470 million to MOP480 million per day – may prove too conservative, and we wouldn’t be surprised if June bucks the weak seasonality” normally expected of the month, added the analysts.

“This also means casinos will see strong second-quarter results that should continue to beat consensus,” with mass [play] and earnings before interest, taxation depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) “recovering over 80-percent-plus and 65 -percent-plus of pre-Covid levels, versus circa 65 percent and circa 45 percent recovery, respectively, in the first quarter,” said JP Morgan.