December’s visit to Macau by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, probably helped to moderate the city’s gross gaming revenue (GGR) for that month, said several brokerages in Wednesday notes.
The commentary followed the issuance that day of Macau’s December and full-year GGR.
The year 2024 closed with December GGR of MOP18.20 billion (US$2.27 billion), down 1.3 percent compared with November’s tally of MOP18.44 billion. The December figure was also down 2.0 percent from a year earlier, the only month of 2024 to post a decline in year-on-year terms.
But Macau’s casino GGR for calendar year 2024 stood at MOP226.78 billion. The figure was up 23.9 percent year-on-year, according to data disclosed on Wednesday by the city’s casino regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
December was an “80 percent recovery versus pre-Covid, to conclude 2024 with a 77 percent recovery for the full year,” said analysts DS Kim, Mufan Shi, and Selina Li of JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd in a Wednesday note.
They added: “The print came in 2 to 3 percent below sell-side consensus (MOP18.5 billion to MOP18.8 billion), but we don’t think this would move the needle much as December was supposed to be a slow month anyway given President Xi’s visit.”
Citigroup stated in a Wednesday note that December’s MOP18.20 billion GGR “implies that the daily run rate for the final 16 days of the month improved to approximately MOP603 million, approximately 4 percent higher than that of the week of December 9, at MOP579 million”.
The brokerage added: “This data point includes the three days” – December 18 to 20 – “when President Xi visited Macau for the 25th anniversary of the handover” of Macau from Portuguese administration to that of China, “which likely means Macau had a strong finish” to its late-December GGR.
Citigroup added: “We expect GGR to grow 6 percent year-on-year” across January and February combined, “neutralising the impact of the timing of Chinese New Year”. This time, that festival will fall on January 29.
JP Morgan said on 2025: “We model 2025 GGR to grow 5 percent, an assumption we haven’t changed for nearly six months.”
