Another week, another update... Macau growth slows this week

Macau slowed a bit in the third week of September.  The daily table GGR for the last 6 days slowed to HK$429MM from a daily average GGR of $485MM for the first 14 days of the month.  Based on the table revenues through the 20th as shown below, we are now projecting total September revenues at HK$14.5-14.7 billion, or 36-38% growth over September of 2009.  Directionally, market shares were similar to our last update, although Wynn’s share loss and MPEL’s share gain have grown.  Wynn's share plummeted to just 6.15% over the last 6 days, while MPEL's market share soared to 19%.  Our understanding is that low hold (~2%) is largely to blame for Wynn's share losses.  If Wynn's hold was really just 2%, normalizing hold while holding the other concessionaires constant implies that their market share would have been around 13.3% through Sept 20th - which is still below the 13.9% share Wynn had in August, and its lowest share since opening Encore. MPEL is up 80 bps since our update last week.  Despite apparently low VIP hold percentage, MGM’s share continues to climb in response to the company’s aggressive commission efforts.

MACAU SEPTEMBER UPDATE THROUGH THE 20TH - macau sept1