“More positive outcomes”
“Customers are coming back to Macau,” says Grant Bowie, CEO of MGM China Holdings Ltd., which is in the final phase of development of its new resort on the city’s Cotai Strip.
Following seven consecutive months of year-on-year growth in GGR that followed a two-year decline, Bowie told reporters, “It would still appear that new capacity exceeds the growth that we have experienced in the market. But I think we’ve turned a corner and can look to more positive outcomes.”
According to GGRAsia, SJM Holdings’ CEO Ambrose So agrees the city is on the upswing. Though Bowie declined to forecast performance for the year, So estimated that overall GGR in Macau for full-year 2017 should increase by about 10 percent year-on-year, with VIP and mass-market gaming segments both contributing to the growth.
And Lawrence Ho, chairman and CEO of Melco Crown, said he expects year-on-year GGR to grow between 5 percent and 9 percent, the Macao Daily News reported.
Last month Japanese brokerage Nomura said it expects the compound annual growth rate of mass-market table games GGR to be 7 percentage points higher than that for VIP table games through 2019 at 9 percent compared to 2 percent for the high-roller business. But Secretary for Economy and Finance Lionel Leong says the government continues to look at the city’s general market performance, not just the growth of the gaming sector, reported Macau Business.
