Macau GGR could decline well over 40% in 2020: Bernstein

Macau gross gaming revenue could decline “well-over” 40 percent in a slow recovery environment, said Bernstein analyst Vitaly Umansky in a webinar on Tuesday.

The decline will depend mainly on visa and transport resumption as it relates to mainland Chinese visitor arrivals. 

Currently, visitation into Macau is running at around 10 percent of normal as visa from China remains suspended and air-travel capacity has been curtailed. 

Bernstein said its bull case scenario would see the re-issuance of visas in Q2, with flights returning to normal levels and no discernible economic slowdown in the Chinese economy due to the virus. This would see GGR down only 15 percent year-on-year in 2020. 

In the base case scenario, business will resume by the summer, but remains below 2019 levels until late 2020.  Economy remaining steady in the latter part of 2020 which will see the return of mass and VIP in Q4. This would see a 26 percent decline in GGR in 2020. 

In the bear case, Q2 remains depressed with only moderate improvement in Q2 and Q3, and China transport and economy remains disrupted. This will see a 43 percent fall in GGR, said the analysts. 

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