Operator News
China – March sees Macau’s biggest year-on-year gain for three years
By Phil - 3 April 2017
March surpassed expectation for Macau’s casino revenue, which increased 18 per cent from a year ago, and represented Macau’s best month aside from holiday months for two years.
March GGR came in at MOP21.2bn (US$2.65 bn) marking the biggest year on year gain since February 2014 when there was a 40 per cent increase to the record ever monthly revenue of MOP38bn.
The figures have been driven by the return of VIP gamblers. JPMorgan believes the VIP segment grew 27 per cent last month and 19 per cent in February, outstripping mass growth of 10 per cent and 16 per cent respectively. A breakdown of the results will be available later in the month.
Union Gaming’s Grant Govertsen said: “While a detailed breakdown of GGR for first quarter 2017 won’t be available for another two weeks, we estimate that VIP GGR likely grew at a rate of 22 per cent to 25 per cent during March, and mass continues to grow in the low double digits or low teens.”
Analysts Carlo Santarelli and Danny Valoy stated: “The second quarter has been softer than the first quarter over the last three years from an absolute dollar GGR perspective. We expect the negative delta to narrow in 2017 and are projecting just a four per cent sequential slowdown.”
