Chinese New Year (CNY) is off to a great start for the Macau casinos following a softer than expected January (hold issues in Jan?). Daily table revenues averaged $1.464 billion, up 78% over comparable period last year. The more appropriate comp is 3rd week of February last year when table revs averaged HK$1.107 billion – so peak CNY is up about 32%. We should see one more week of fairly strong revenues related to the CNY celebration before the seasonal slowdown. All in, we continue to project February YoY growth of around 20%, which could prove conservative.
For market shares, LVS is crushing it this month with MTD market share well ahead of trend as is Galaxy. Those market share gains are coming at the expense of SJM, MGM, and MPEL. While variances from normal hold are no doubt causing most of the share volatility this early in the month, we expect LVS primarily and Wynn secondarily, to be volume share gainers, with LVS showing the longer tail. Indeed, the anecdotal feedback from the ground suggests terrific volumes at the LVS Cotai properties.
