Macau casino revenue rose in March for the second consecutive month.
The casinos won MOP8.3 billion (US$1.04 billion), according to results tallied by the government’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
It was a 58 percent increase over March 2020 and the market’s second monthly increase since the Covid pandemic struck early last year and shut down virtually all travel to and from the Chinese territory for the better part of six months.
For the quarter, revenues finished down 22.5 percent versus the same period last year.
Nonetheless, some analysts sounded a positive note.
“We think the second half of the month was better than the first half of the month, so the full month gaming results likely understates the degree of recovery,” J.P. Morgan’s Joe Greff said in a client note.
He added that positive consumer travel sentiment and pent-up demand should continue to show in improved results.
April started on a more tenuous note, however, as revenues through the first week were essentially flat with the last week of March at around MOP1.5 billion ($187 million) and a daily average around 7 percent below March as a whole.
“While visitation has been picking up, what is evidently relatively weak (gaming revenue) clearly indicates lower spend per visitor,” said a trio of analysts with brokerage Sanford Bernstein.
They added, however, that “A few weeks do not make a trend, and we expect (revenues) to improve through April and May.”
Deutsche Bank, meanwhile, has significantly lowered its win forecast for the second quarter, from US$4.39 billion to $2.96 billion, and has lowered its forecast for the year by roughly $4 billion to $19.29 billion, based on factors that include visitation and recent declines in hotel room supply and occupancy.
