Macau’s gross gaming revenues have continued to steadily climb, with estimates for the first 13 days of August placing industry revenue at MOP$7.2 billion (US$894 million) or MOP$553 million (US$68.6 million) per day – suggesting a 7% week-on-week improvement – according to JP Morgan’s weekly channel checks.
In a Monday note, analysts DS Kim and Mufan Shi said the gradual improvement over the past seven days reflects “seasonality and subsiding impact from [recent] bad weather.”
It also suggests mass GGR is now running at between 90% and 95% of pre-COVID levels, keeping it on track to meet earlier predictions of a return to 2019 mass revenues by October.
Kim and Shi said they remain bullish on Macau stocks which are yet to fully reflect the strong recovery trajectory reported by concessionaires in 2Q23.
“Macau stocks remain sidelined in the past three months despite meaningful beats and earnings upgrades,” they wrote.
“The lack of strong share momentum was, unsurprisingly, related to more systemic risks (e.g. macro headwinds, geopolitical risks), and we believe this provides an attractive buying opportunity for investors willing to ‘play the long game’ and ignore the noise.
“Continued upgrades by the Street continue to shave off valuations to very attractive levels, in our view, which in turn should bring an increasing number of investors to come back to this space.”
Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) reported a post-pandemic high of MOP$16.66 billion (US$2.06 billion) in GGR in July.
