In Macau, March reportedly saw aggregated gross gaming revenues rise for an eighth consecutive month as the over 30 casinos in the city posted an 18.1% combined increase year-on-year to bring in just over $2.65 billion.

According to a report from GGRAsia citing official figures from the Gaming Inspection And Coordination Bureau regulator, the tally for the 31-day period came courtesy of the highest average daily revenues for a non-holiday period in two years at $85.6 million, which was only 2.6% below the $87.9 million in corresponding takings recorded during the previous bell-weather month of October.

Macau had been suffering through 26 months of year-on-year declines in aggregated gross gaming revenues until August saw casinos in the former Portuguese enclave post a 1.1% improvement to $2.35 billion while September’s figure of $2.29 billion represented a swell of 7.4%. This trend continued in October with an 8.8% boost to $2.72 billion before being surpassed by a 14.4% advance to $2.34 billion in November.

December’s figure subsequently grew by 8% year-on-year to hit $2.47 billion while combined takings in January rose by 3.1% to reach nearly $2.41 billion before February saw a 17.8% boost to $2.87 billion.

“While a detailed breakdown of gross gaming revenues for the first quarter 2017 won’t be available for another two weeks, we estimate that VIP gross gaming revenues likely grew at a rate of 22% to 25% during March and mass continues to grow in the low double-digits or low teens,” read a statement from Union Gaming Securities Asia Limited analyst Grant Govertsen.

Govertsen reportedly declared that Macau’s rise in consolidated gross gaming revenues for March had “handily beat” market consensus “for the second consecutive month” while Deutsche Bank Securities Incorporated explained that it had now revised its full-year estimate upwards by two percentage points to 12%.

“The second quarter has been softer than the first quarter over the last three years from an absolute dollar gross gaming revenues perspective [but] we expect the negative delta to narrow in 2017 and are projecting just a 4% sequential slowdown [in the second quarter],” read a statement from Deutsche Bank Securities Incorporated analysts Carlo Santarelli and Danny Valoy.