Macau’s March gaming trends “off to strong start”: Analysts

2013-3-12

From:Macau Business

Analysts are expecting March casino revenues to post strong growth in March.

U.S.-based brokerage firm Sterne Agee is maintaining a 14 percent year-on-year casino gaming revenue increase for March, calling for an all-time monthly record.

Analyst David Bain forecasts Macau’s casinos to post MOP28.4 billion (US$3.55 billion) in revenues in March.

“According to our checks, Macau table-only gross gaming revenue is MOP10.7 billion through March 10. Including slots, March’s full gross gaming revenue run-rate is MOP34.4 billion or up to 32 percent year-on-year,” Mr Bain wrote in a note.

In addition, he said that the VIP sector saw a healthy hold in the first 10 days of the month.

“Still, early checked results are impressive, in our view. We continue to expect VIP outperformance relative to consensus estimates – especially early mid-year as comparisons ease significantly combined with continued follow through from an improving China macro picture,” he said.
RBC Capital also cited industry checks to say that gaming revenue in Macau, excluding electronic table games, soared 38.5 percent in the first 10 days of March compared to the same period last year, Investor’s Business Daily reports.

RBC Capital Markets analyst John Kempf said that the average daily win rate for table games in Macau in early March was US$1,036, “just slightly lower than what was recorded over Chinese New Year in February”.

“These are very strong numbers to start the month and sets March up nicely for double-digit growth,” Mr Kempf said.

Copyright@Macau Business