It was speculated yesterday, but today it’s been made official. Macau’s casinos made 24.29 billion in Macau Pataca last month (February), which translates to approximately $3 billion US dollars. These official figures released today demonstrate that’s a 22.3% increase when compared to the same month in 2011.
A report by Macau Business maintains this impressive result was actually a sharp fall from the 34.8% year-on-year increase recorded in January this year, but this was due to the Chinese New Year, which fell earlier this year than the last. The report stated: “it typically falls on February – making year-on-year comparisons harder.”
Macau also recorded that the first two months of 2012 accumulated casino gross gaming revenue reached MOP49.3 billion – roughly $6.1 million – up by 28.3% year-on-year.
However, the Statistics and Census Service has reported that Macau’s total merchandise exports for January amounted to MOP622 million (US$77.8 million), which was down by 4.7% year-on-year. On the flip side, merchandise iports were up by 16.3% year-on-year, amounting to MOP5.68 billion, meaning Macau’s population are probably buying more luxury goods. As for the merchandise trade deficit for January, that widened by 19.6% year-on-year to MOP5.06 billion.
Macau-based SJM Holdings also announced some positive full-year and Q4 results yesterday, demonstrating a 39% increase in profits. On top of that, the company has also confirmed it is in “advanced” talks with the government regarding its application for the development of a 70,500 square metre area of land in Cotai. In a report by Macau Business, Union Gaming Research Macau analysts said: “We believe that SJM is one of the two Cotai land approvals granted this year if the government makes its decision based on the order in which applications were submitted.”
