Philippine casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) continues to grow in the three months to March 31, up 7% year over year, brokerage CLSA Ltd said.
"March's GGR (1% year-over-year, -6% quarter-over-quarter) held up well despite Easter lull hampering year-over-year comparisons," Marcus Liu, an analyst, said in a note this week. Easter, a time when punters traditionally avoid the game table, was down in March this year compared with April 2015.
"Despite the adverse seasonality, 2016's GGR was still 7% year-over-year, achieving an annual target of 8% growth," Rui said, adding, "We expect April's GGR to increase by about 40% year-over-year as a result of early Easter results."
Accumulated casino GGR, which includes venues managed by the state-run Philippine Amuse and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) and those run by private sector operators, reached 130 billion PHP ($2.77 billion) in 2015, up 17% from 2014, Pagcor's president, Kristino Naguiat, said in January.
CLSA said City of Dreams Manila casino resort operator Melco Crown (Philippines) Resorts Corporation expects to report the strongest first quarter earnings among major casino operators in the Philippines.
The City of Dreams Manila Project has three private sector competitors that meet international standards in the Manila market. Resort World Manila, which opened in August 2009 and is managed by Travelers International Hotels Group, Solaire Resort and Casino, developed and operated by Bloomberry Resort, which opened in March 2013, and Manila Bay Resort, operated by Universal Entertainment, which is scheduled to open by the end of 2016.
"Melco Crown Philippines will have the strongest results since the opening of City of Dreams Manila," said Ryu of CLSA.
The brokerage said it expects the casino operator to report sequentially interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) full-property revenue of $26 million, up 56% quarter-on-quarter, on the back of 22% GGR growth.
Bloomberg Resorts also likely to see a rise in first-quarter earnings. "Because bad loans have been resolved in Solaire, provisioning will be much lower in 2016 and we will get much better returns. In the first quarter of 2016, we expect 1.5 billion PHP of EBITDA," a CLSA analyst said. 슬롯사이트
Enrique Razon, chairman of Bloomberg Resorts, said in a recent comment that the company's outlook is "much better this year" and that there are "no more bad accounts, no bad debts."
Bloomberg Resorts reported a net loss of 3.36 billion PHP in 2015 on April 15. Provisions for suspicious accounts nearly tripled to 2.57 billion PHPs last year, compared with 679.66 million PHPs in 2014.
"Travelers International would have been the worst performer among Filipino game service providers in the first quarter of 2016, with GGR down 20% year-on-year, or -11% quarter-on-quarter," Liu said.
Resorts World Manila continues to lose market share to Entertainment City's casino resorts, CLSA added. However, the brokerage expects Travelers International's margin to hold better "as the Junket revenue sharing contract declines."
Junket promotional allowances weigh on the 2015 numbers, Travelers International said in its annual results filed in March.
