A seven percent year-on-year rise in Chinese visitation during the second half of January suggests that Macau’s recovery is still well underway, despite gross gaming revenue falling below expectations for the month.
Macau’s GGR grew 3.1 percent in January to MOP$19.26 billion, well below earlier estimations of between eight and 10 percent and the fourth consecutive month it has missed seasonality. However, Morgan Stanley analysts Praveen Choudhary and Alex Poon believe much of this deceleration through January can be attributed to luck, with Chinese visitation growing significantly across the Chinese New Year period.
“While we understand missing a big Chinese New Year (CNY) day (Jan 31st) in the calculation hurts January data, we don’t think that explains the weakness fully,” the pair stated in a note. “We believe this could be related to lower luck as visitation grew by seven percent in the last 13 days, similar to December 2016.”
With February GGR calculations to include the main two Chinese New Year holidays – 21 January and 1 February – Morgan Stanley has tipped growth of around 10 percent for the month and around nine percent for 2017 as a whole.
