Results beat market forecasts
The news just keeps getting better for Macau, which saw an 18.1 percent spike in gross gaming revenues for the month of March. The results beat analysts’ forecasts. They expected growth of 12 percent to 16 percent.
Accumulated gross revenue for the first three months of 2017 was MOP$63.5 billion (US$7.9 billion), up 13 percent year-on-year compared to the first three months of 2016.
“While a detailed breakdown of GGR for 17Q1 won’t be available for another two weeks we estimate that VIP GGR likely grew at a rate of 22 percent to 25 percent during March and mass continues to grow in the low double digits or low teens,” said Union Gaming in a note on the results.
“Our channel checks indicate stronger than expected VIP volumes and VIP hold (especially in the latter part of the month) to have been well over theoretical range and drove outsized VIP GGR performance,” said Bernstein. “VIP GGR during the month was much stronger than we had expected. However, longer run we remain skeptical of a long sustained double digit growth environment for VIP. We see VIP slowing down in 2H (and perhaps turning negative in Q4).”
The results for February and March have been based on a surge in VIP traffic, which is outpacing mass play on a year-on-year basis, said the brokerage.
“In this context we’re inclined to describe the current trends as a “mass anchored” recovery as we still have a lot more confidence in the stability and visibility of mass over the near, medium, and longer terms,” it said.
Union Gaming says it is forecasting GGR growth of 13 percent to 15 percent for the month of April, according to Bloomberg News.
