Macau’s gaming industry extended its slump last month, with revenue plunging 68 percent year-on-year as China tightened travel restrictions during a record COVID-19 outbreak, and casinos burned through millions of dollars of cash per day.
Gross gaming revenue dropped to 3.34 billion patacas (US$413.6 million), the Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau said.
The results were worse than the median analyst estimate of a 64 percent year-on-year decline, and follow a 68 percent slump in April and a 56 percent drop in March.
Photo: Reuters
Revenue rose 25 percent from April, but was down about 87 percent from levels before the emergence of COVID-19 in 2019.
The gaming industry has been mired in uncertainty due to the strict COVID-19 curbs in China, Macau’s biggest source of visitors.
Last month, officials strictly limited unnecessary outbound travel for its citizens and tightened the approval of entry and exit documents to prevent COVID-19 from being brought into the country.
There was also a separate China-led crackdown on cross-border gambling, which led to a further tightening of visa issuance for those suspected of illegal gambling activities.
Visitation plunged 24 percent year-on-year in April, after a 30 percent decline in March. Later this month, Macau is to release figures for last month.
With gaming revenue plummeting, the territory’s six major casino operators are facing increasing liquidity pressure.
The industry was burning an average of US$12 million per day in the first quarter, estimates from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc showed.
In a worst-case scenario of no revenue coming in at all, every operator except for SJM Holdings Ltd (澳門博彩控股) could survive between one and two-and-a-half years, an estimate from Sanford C. Bernstein showed.
SJM might survive three months, but the company is in the process of negotiating refinancing that could provide it with HK$5.7 billion (US$726.5 million) in further liquidity, Bernstein said.
PATENTS: MediaTek Inc said it would not comment on ongoing legal cases, but does not expect the legal action by Huawei to affect its business operations Smartphone integrated chips designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Friday said that a lawsuit filed by Chinese smartphone brand Huawei Technologies Co (華為) over alleged patent infringements would have little impact on its operations. In an announcement posted on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, MediaTek said that it would not comment on an ongoing legal case. However, the company said that Huawei’s legal action would have little impact on its operations. MediaTek’s statement came after China-based PRIP Research said on Thursday that Huawei filed a lawsuit with a Chinese district court claiming that MediaTek infringed on its patents. The infringement mentioned in the lawsuit likely involved
Taipei is today suspending work, classes and its US$2.4 trillion stock market as Typhoon Gaemi approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Authorities had yesterday issued a warning that the storm could affect people on land and canceled some ship crossings and domestic flights. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) expects its local chipmaking fabs to maintain normal production, the company said in an e-mailed statement. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp said it has activated routine typhoon alert
GROWTH: TSMC increased its projected revenue growth for this year to more than 25 percent, citing stronger-than-expected demand for AI devices and smartphones The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) yesterday raised its forecast for Taiwan’s GDP growth this year from 3.29 percent to 3.85 percent, as exports and private investment recovered faster than it predicted three months ago. The Taipei-based think tank also expects that Taiwan would see a 8.19 percent increase in exports this year, better than the 7.55 percent it projected in April, as US technology giants spent more money on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and development. “There will be more AI servers going forward, but it remains to be seen if the momentum would extend to personal computers, smartphones and
Catastrophic computer outages caused by a software update from one company have once again exposed the dangers of global technological dependence on a handful of players, experts said on Friday. A flawed update sent out by the little-known security firm CrowdStrike Holdings Inc brought airlines, TV stations and myriad other aspects of daily life to a standstill. The outages affected companies or individuals that use CrowdStrike on the Microsoft Inc’s Windows platform. When they applied the update, the incompatible software crashed computers into a frozen state known as the “blue screen of death.” “Today CrowdStrike has become a household name, but not in