Las Vegas Sands (LVS) increased its mass table share but lost overall Macau market share during the first three months of 2017 due to the strong performance of the city’s VIP segment, according to investment bank Wells Fargo Securities.
Despite last week’s 1Q earnings announcement revealing vastly improved year-on-year results across its Macau operations, with adjusted property EBITDA up 20.5% to US$624 million and gross gaming revenue up 12% to US$1.8 billion, Wells Fargo analysts Cameron McKnight and Robert Shore remain wary on LVS stocks with early estimates suggesting Macau market share fell from 23.1% to 22.9% on the back of a 170bps fall in VIP share to 14.3%.
That’s despite mass table share growing 140bps from 28.9% to 30.3%.
“We remain neutral on the Macau gaming market and LVS as we see limited upside to estimates and remain generally cautious on the market,” Wells Fargo said in a Monday release. “Expectations are relatively high for LVS, which could limit relative upside. Moreover, we’d expect LVS to underperform if market growth is led by the VIP segment, given its historical skew towards the mass market.”
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