Macau's total gaming revenue in February may drop 23% from January
Analysts said that Macau’s gross gaming revenue (GGR) in the first half of February fell 23% from January to approximately 3 billion patacas (US$375 million) or 200 million patacas (US$25 million) per day.
Five days before the Spring Festival Golden Week, the number of tourists visiting Australia decreased by 71.6% year-on-year to only 62,984. As a result, last week's GGR fell to 190 million patacas (US$23.8 million) per day. Compared with February 2019, this data is down 83%, but better than February 2020.
JP Morgan’s DS Kim and Derek Choi stated in a report issued on Tuesday: “The next week should be better. As before, we believe that demand will start to rise from the 4th or 5th day after the Spring Festival, entering the so-called “tail end” period. (It lasts more than 5 days after the statutory holiday). We hope to see a meaningful increase in the data for the next week. However, due to continued travel restrictions, it is not clear at this time."
Compared with Sunday, the number of inbound tourists on Monday dropped slightly, from 17,357 to 15,214, a year-on-year decrease of 43.9% compared with the 5th day of the Spring Festival Golden Week last year.
Brokerage firm Bernstein has lowered its February GGR forecast to a low of 70%, but pointed out: "This largely depends on the situation in the second half of the Spring Festival and the rest of the month. Normally the data is better than The days before the Spring Festival and the days before the Spring Festival are better. Macau continues to be affected by adverse factors in the first half of 2021, but with the end of travel restrictions related to the new crown epidemic, we see strong improvements in the second half of the year."
