Maybank Securities Inc is cutting by 12 percent its estimate for 2024 revenue at Philippine casino operator Bloomberry Resorts Corp, now expecting PHP57.4 billion (US$1.03 billion).

The brokerage said this was on the basis that in the first nine months of 2023 Bloomberry’s “VIP and slot segments came in lower-than-expected at 70 percent and 60 percent” of the institution’s full-year forecasts. Bloomberry has not yet officially reported its fourth-quarter and full-year numbers.

The institution is expecting the group’s 2024 net income to be PHP13.2 billion, 23-percent lower than its previous forecast. Nonetheless, that figure would still represent circa 23 percent growth year-on-year, compared to an estimated PHP10.8 billion in net income in 2023.

Bloomberry runs Solaire Resort & Casino (pictured) in the Philippine capital Manila, and a smaller casino hotel in Jeju, South Korea.

Maybank nonetheless said sustained growth should be possible in 2024, which could boost actual outcomes for the year.

“We expect growth to be sustained by the further recovery in the higher-margin mass and slots segments and the opening of Solaire Resort North which will add circa 150 tables for mass and circa 2,500 for slots by first half 2024,” wrote analysts Alexa Mae Carvajal and Raffy Mendoza in a Wednesday note, ahead of Bloomberry’s fourth-quarter and full-year earnings.

The institution noted that in 2023 foreign tourist arrivals to the Philippines rose 105 percent year-on-year to 5.5 million, but that was “still only at 66 percent” of pre-pandemic levels.

“The further recovery in the tourism sector could potentially drive the increase in demand for the VIP segment,” stated Maybank.

It added: “Currently, foreign players are mainly from South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, and any uptick from [mainland] Chinese tourist arrivals would be a potential windfall for Bloomberry.”