Macau’s gaming operators recorded their best week since the earliest days of 2020 during May Golden Week, with gross gaming revenues clawing back to around 50% of pre-COVID-19 levels according to JP Morgan analysts.
In a Thursday note, JP Morgan’s DS Kim, Derek Choi and Livy Lyu described GGR figures for the holiday period as “broadly satisfactory” – led by a resurgence in the mass segment.
While visitation only reached around 25% of 2019 May Golden Week levels, GGR was between 40% and 50% including a recovery to between 60% and 70% for mass GGR compared with 20% to 25% for VIP.
Luxury retail sales were back to pre-COVID-19 levels, with some tenants seeing double digit growth over 2019 Golden Week.
JP Morgan said that preliminary estimates suggest a daily GGR run rate of MOP$400 million to MOP$500 million (US$50.0 million to US$62.5 million) over the past week, compared with recent run rates of MOP$270 million to MOP$280 million (US$33.7 million to US$35.0 million) per day, “reflecting pent-up demand.”
“Weekly GGR data from industry consultants is scheduled to come out on Monday for the first nine days of May,” the analysts state.
“The data will encompass both holiday (May 1-5) and seasonal lull (May 6-9), hence will likely come in at MOP$330 million to MOP$380 million (US$41.2 million to US$47.5 million) per day.
“This in turn suggests May should be able to print GGR of MOP$9.5 billion-plus (US$1.2 billion), a tad better than consensus expectations.”
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