Macau’s February growth exceeds analysts’ expectations

hly gross revenue from games of fortune in Macau climbed by 17.8% to 23bn patacas in February, marking the seventh month of growth in a row as the region continues to move on from the 26 month nosedive that came before.

February’s GGR represents a two-year high for Macau, which had suffered a series of declines from June 2014 in the face Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive and slow economic growth.

Accumulated gross revenue for the year also rose, with revenue of 42bn patacas representing an increase of 10.6% over the same two month period in 2016.

Richard Huang, an Analyst at Nomura in Hong Kong, noted that “while it is hard to call the last week’s results a trend, the industry has shown clear signs of stabilisation.”

Brokerage firm Bernstein noted the importance of VIP performance to the latest results: “We believe a large portion of the upside surprise in February was strong VIP. VIP growth may have likely shown mid-20s percent growth year-on-year.

“The last week of the month was helped by several junket marketing events, including Sun City’s anniversary party, which brought in significant increase in VIP players and agents.”

Bernstein analyst Vitaly Umansky was quoted by Reuters, saying that this could mean March will see “a slowing VIP environment” compared to February.