Brokerage Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd says it expects Macau’s gross gaming revenue in the fourth quarter of 2025 to increase by circa 8 percent sequentially, and about 17 percent from the prior-year period.
Such GGR growth would be supported by a 22-percent increase in December, given a “low base in 2024,” wrote analysts Praveen Choudhary and Anson Lee.
The analysts said they expect fourth-quarter property earnings before interest, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) for the Macau industry to be up 5.9 percent quarter-on-quarter, to nearly US$2.25 billion. The tally would represent a 15.2-percent increase from a year earlier.
Despite “high” operating expenditure (opex) in the fourth quarter, “more than 10 percent year-on-year, we could see some margin improvement in fourth-quarter 2025,” they added in a recent memo.
The note said the institution expected daily operating expenditure for Macau’s six concessionaires to have risen to the equivalent of US$23.5 million in the final three months of this year.
The Morgan Stanley team said operating costs for the October to December quarter “appear elevated”, with SJM Holdings Ltd’s operating spending “expected to rise by circa 15 percent quarter-on-quarter, as result of staff absorption following the closure of satellite casinos”.
Satellite venue Casino Landmark, part of the New Orient Landmark Hotel on Macau peninsula, is due to cease operations on December 30, according to SJM Resorts Ltd, the SJM group licence holder in Macau.
Following the closure of Casino Landmark, Macau would no longer have any satellite gaming venue in operation.
GGRAsia’s review of publicly-announced data concerning the rolling closure of satellites – most of them under SJM Holdings’ licensing – showed that about 4,149 employees are to be absorbed into the SJM group’s core operations.
In terms of players’ reinvestment, the institution expects to see a “slight increase,” with the exception of Sands China Ltd, where it expects “a deliberate uplift in reinvestment as part of its strategy to gain market share”.
As per Morgan Stanely’s note, mass revenue will remain the “dominant contributor” to Macau’s industry EBITDA in the three months to December 31.
“Against this backdrop, we expect Sands and MGM China [Holdings Ltd] to capture the largest mass share gains in fourth-quarter 2025,” suggested the brokerage’s analysts.
“However, helped by unusually high VIP hold rates in October, we believe Galaxy [Entertainment Group Ltd] could report notable hold-led GGR share gains for the quarter,” they added.
