Macau casino GGR to be flat in March

According to Nomura’s Instinet, casino GGR is expected to be flat at best in Macau’s casino segment during March.

Macau.- As many brokerages have already forecasted before, the gaming industry is struggling so far in Macau. According to Instinet, a division of the Japanese company Nomura, Macau casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) may be flat or worse by the end of March, with a -5% projection in the worst case scenario.

“Factoring in the somewhat lower-than-expected weekly GGR numbers month-to-date, we now expect the sequential lift in March (from February) to be slightly lower than its historical average of up low-single-digit sequentially,” Nomura’s analysts Harry Curtis, Daniel Adam and Brian Dobson wrote in a Monday note.

“Assuming GGR per day settles at approximately €87.2 million to €92.7 million for the remaining two weeks of the month, we now estimate March GGR will be around flat to down 5% year-on-year,” they added.

Brokerage Sanford C. Bernstein also estimated a similar figure for the GGR average daily rate between March 11 and March 17 for the Macau casino industry, setting it at €80.9 million, while Nomura estimated €81 million.

According to Bernstein, aggregate GGR in March was €1.5 billion, averaging €88.4 million per day, which would mean it went down by 3% from March 2018.

“We expect year-on-year comparison to be difficult through the end of April, as GGR was very robust in early 2018 until U.S.-China trade tensions heightened beginning last summer,” they also wrote.

2019 forecast

Forecasts for the Macanese 2019 financial year aren’t so encouraging as analysts see growth slowing down and upward trends breaking up. However, Instinet had stated that its previous GGR estimate has gone at least 1% up thanks to new investment in the country, instead of going up to 3% down.