Macau’s gross gaming revenue grew 10.3% year-on-year in July to MOP$25.33 billion as Asia’s gaming hub notched two full years of consecutive growth. The July figure represents a 12.6% sequential increase on June’s MOP$22.49 billion and takes accumulated GGR for the first seven months of 2018 to MOP$175.54 billion – up 17.5% on the same period last year.
However, July was also the second consecutive month in which GGR has come in below consensus as the slowdown predicted earlier in the year starts to take effect.
According to brokerage Bernstein, the final nine days of the month were considerably softer after a strong start with an average daily rate of MOP$775 million compared to the monthly average of MOP$817 million.
Nevertheless, Union Gaming’s Grant Govertsen said, “We view this result favorably as the month faced three headwinds: 1) the calendar was unfavorable with one fewer Sunday, 2) July had the toughest comp of the year (+29.2%), and 3) while we believe it was a small impact, the more interesting second half of the World Cup played out during the first two weeks of July.”
Early predictions for August have GGR growth at between 13% and 17%.
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