Melco chairman and CEO Lawrence Ho outlined the recovery the city’s gaming industry has made in 2023 compared to the previous year.
“We have seen a very encouraging start to the recovery in Macau during the first quarter of 2023, following the relaxation of border restrictions in early January,” he said.
“We continued to see improving momentum into April and Golden Week in May, with mass market table games drop and mass gross gaming revenue during the Golden Week period exceeding the same period in 2019.
Worst year on record
In 2022, Macau casinos saw their worst year on record as heightened restrictions, including a summer lockdown, pushed revenue for the Special Administrative Region down to $5.2bn. This was down 51.4% from 2021 and 85.5% from its pre-pandemic 2019 total.
The business recorded $0.4m in operating profit for the three-month period ending 31 March, significantly better than the $135.9m operating loss the business announced the previous year.
Melco’s property adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation or amortisation (EBITDA) rose 240.7% from $56.0m to $190.9m.
However, when factoring in the business’s debt obligations and liabilities, Melco reported a net loss of $81.3m for Q1. This compares with the $183.3m announced in the same period the previous year.
City of Dreams Adj. EBITDA recovers
The company’s flagship Macau City of Dreams integrated resort casino saw revenue rise 39.6% year-on-year to $358.3m for the period, compared to the $256.7m the business achieved in the same period the previous year. Adjusted EBITDA rose from $44.4m to $94.9m at the casino-hotel complex.
The business said that the year-on-year increases in EBITDA was “primary” a result of better performance in the company’s mass market table games segment, as well as the resort’s non-gaming operations.
Original article: https://igamingbusiness.com/finance/quarterly-results/macau-recovery-melco-revenue/
