Morgan Stanley has trimmed its casino revenue forecast for March to MOP19 billion (US$2.37 billion) after the gaming sector delivered a lower-than-expected result last month.
The prediction for March, which is three percent higher compared to February, points to a recovery to 74 per cent of the 2019 level.
Despite the Golden Week holiday that traditionally attracts a large number of mainland Chinese tourists to Macau, February only saw gross gaming revenue (GGR) of nearly MOP18.5 billion.
It fell short of financial analysts’ expectations of MOP18 billion to MOP19.8 billion, analysts Praveen K Choudhary and Gareth Leung wrote in a recent note.
However, although Chinese New Year visitation from mainland China surged by 40 per cent compared to the previous Golden Week in October last year, the daily GGR for February experienced modest growth of 1.3 per cent during that period, explained the analysts.
“This could also be due to much weaker post-CNY spending and/or low VIP luck since MLCO and Galaxy noted Mass GGR recovery of 122 per cent and 120 per cent for the CNY,” the analysts wrote.
