Macau’s gaming industry has continued its strong performance, with gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the first 14 days of May estimated at MOP8 billion (US$990 million), or a daily run-rate of MOP570 million, according to JP Morgan. The recent estimate by analyst DS Kim working for the investment bank suggested that the industry’s impressive results for the May Day holiday were not just a one-off, but had elevated baseline demand levels, similar to what was seen during the Lunar New Year in late January this year. “This implies that last week’s GGR – a seasonally slow week after the long holiday – was still at MOP500 million per day, a meaningful notch above the MOP400m+ run-rates that the industry generated prior to the Labor Day holiday,” said Kim. Kim highlighted that mass demand was running at around 80 to 85 per cent of pre-Covid levels, while VIP demand had seen a recovery rate of around 25 to 30 per cent – both of which are significantly higher than the “65%+/15%+” recovery rates recorded in the first quarter of 2023. The recovery rate for VIP GGR implies that direct VIP revenue have approximately doubled compared to pre-COVID levels, said the analyst. Despite gross gaming revenue of MOP14.72 billion reported for April – the highest monthly figure since January 2020, the stocks of the six Hong Kong-listed gaming operators went sliding last week. “We do note the Macau stocks have not been reacting to good news and prints of late. But we continue to believe – and hope – that better-than-expected fundamentals will ultimately drive the sentiment or stocks higher as the Street numbers move up,” said Kim. (ICE HONG KONG)

Fonte notizia: Macau Business