Demand for Macau casino gambling remained “solid” in the third week of January, despite what is typically “seasonal weakness” in the period before Chinese New Year, said JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd in a Monday note.
“Demand remains solid month-to-date,” stated analysts DS Kim, Mufan Shi and Selina Li.
“Based on our checks, gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the first 19 days of January was MOP12.1 billion [US$1.51 billion], translating to a daily run-rate of MOP637 million,” they added
“This implies demand was solid and steady even last week at MOP614 million per day despite the seasonal weakness into lunar new year from next week,” said the JP Morgan team.
The lunar new year falls on January 29. China’s State Council has declared the mainland holiday – this time marking the Year of the Snake – as an eight-day period running from January 28 to February 4 inclusive. The festivities are a period for peak demand in Macau’s tourism and gaming markets.
The institution noted that the festival this time falls earlier in the calendar year than it did in 2024, when Chinese New Year was in February. That made year-on-year comparisons of the festive trade harder.
“We now forecast January/February combined GGR to be flat to plus 2 percent, implying 2 percent to 4 percent growth in daily run-rates year-on-year,” said JP Morgan.
The Macau hotel-sector occupancy rate for the upcoming Chinese New Year festivities might beat the 95 percent average for the equivalent holiday period last year, said Andy Wu Keng Kuong, Macau Travel Industry Council president, in comments quoted on Monday by local media.
Though a Morgan Stanley survey suggested occupancy rates might not be correlated to positive performance in average daily room rates, which it saw trending down year-on-year when it did a survey a fortnight ahead of the holiday.
JP Morgan observed in its Monday update: “We do see near-full booking and robust demand for upcoming lunar new year, likely generating a record… for mass GGR and visitations.”
Though the institution added this “may not be particularly thesis-changing given similarly strong trends last year”.
Year-on-year comparisons will remain “quite tough throughout January to May, which is why we model industry GGR growth of 4 percent year-on-year for the first half, versus 7 percent in the second half, to produce 5 percent [growth] in full-year 2025,” translating to 7 percent growth in the mass segment, and a 4 percent shrinkage in VIP, stated the JP Morgan team.
