New Zealand’s SkyCity Entertainment Group says it expects its group-wide EBITDA for the financial year ending 30 June 2025 to fall 4% below the bottom of its previous guidance range due to customers spending less than previously. The previous EBITDA guidance range was for between NZ$225 million to NZ$245 million (US$135 million to US$147 million).
In a filing, the company explained that while visitation continues to hold steady across all precincts, spend per visit across the froup has continued to fall making forecasting difficult.
Specifically, SkyCity Auckland has seen reduced spend per visit across both its hospitality and gaming businesses while SkyCity Hamilton and SkyCity Queenstown casinos have continued to perform broadly in line with Group expectations, it added.
In Adelaide, performance has been impacted by both lower visitation and lower spend by VIP gaming customers due to an uplift in the company’s AML and harm minimization program.
This is despite overall EGM gaming turnover in South Australia growing year-over-year. Spend on the uplift program will be around NZ$60 million (US$36 million) over the period from FY25 to FY27, SkyCity stated.
“The difficult market conditions that businesses like ours – which are reliant on discretionary consumer spending – are experiencing continue to have a significant impact on both our revenue and earnings,” said SkyCity’s CEO, Jason Walbridge.
“We continue to be pleased with the levels of visitation we are seeing across our precincts and are adjusting our underlying cost base where appropriate, in response to the lower revenue levels we are currently experiencing.
“Notwithstanding these challenging conditions, we remain optimistic that as consumer confidence returns and spend begins to lift, SkyCity is well placed to maximize the opportunities in front of us, like the New Zealand International Convention Centre (NZICC) opening in February 2026.”