Macau August GGR Expected to Hit New Post-Covid Record at MOP17 Billion

MACAU, SAR (August 3, 2023) — Brokerage Citigroup Inc. has estimated gross gaming revenue (GGR) for August at MOP17 billion (US$2.12 billion), with the expected figure to surpass the post-Covid monthly record set last month.

August is usually a “seasonally strong month” for being a summer holiday, Citigroup analysts George Choi and Ryan Cheung highlighted, saying that they “conservatively look for GGR to reach MOP17 billion”, equivalent to 70 per cent of the 2019 level.

Macau News Agency (MNA) reported Citigroup noted in a Tuesday update that the July GGR figure was slightly higher than both its estimate and the market consensus of MOP16 billion.

Macau casinos last month made the highest monthly revenue since the end of Covid restrictions early this year, raking in as much as MOP16.66 billion.

The encouraging performance was up by a whopping 4,082.9 per cent year on year.

The July revenue implies a daily run-rate of MOP595 million for the final eight days of the month, 14 per cent higher than that of the previous week, the Citigroup analysts said.

Over the past few weeks, Macau hotels have been hovering around an average occupancy rate of 90 per cent occupancy at weekends, and the brokerage believes that Macau “continues to appeal to the higher-value visitors.”

The forecast was echoed by Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., which predicted that GGR for August 2023 would amount to US$2.123 billion – a 30.1 per cent decline compared to August 2019.

Despite this, it still marks a monthly sequential per-day improvement of 1.8 per cent, analyst Carlo Santarelli said.

The investment bank estimated that GGR for the third quarter of 2023 will stand at US$6.13 billion, and the full-year 2023 figure is expected to reach US$22.5 billion – 40.6 per cent higher than the government estimate.

SOURCE: Macau News Agency (MNA).