Thank you for holding and welcome to the Galaxy Entertainment Group's management update for the Q1 results of 2023. Joining us today are Mr. Ted Chan, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Roland To, Senior Director of Strategic Planning, and Mr. Peter Caveny, Assistant Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. At this time, all participants' lines are in listen only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time. This meeting is being recorded. I would now like to pass to Mr. Chan for presentation. Mr. Chan, please go ahead. Thank you.
Thank you, operator. Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us for the update call on GEG's Q1 2023 results. For those who have not previously met with me, I'm Ted Chan, I'm the Chief Financial Officer of Galaxy Entertainment. I've been active in Macau gaming market over the past 20 years, and for the past five years I've been leading our Japan development team. I'm happy to be back. Joining me here on today's call is Roland To, Senior Director of Strategic Planning, and Peter Caveny, Assistant Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. A copies of our media release, stock exchange announcement, and PowerPoint presentation are available on our website, which also include our customary disclaimers. Following the relaxation of COVID-related travel restrictions in early January, Macau has experienced a rapid rebound in visitation and associated revenues.
It has been very pleasing to see solid pent-up demand following relaxation of travel restrictions. Visitors arrivals, hotel occupancy, gaming revenue, and retail sales have all seen good growth. For Q1 2023, GEG reported EBITDA of HKD 1.91 billion, up 232% year-on-year, and also versus an EBITDA loss of HKD 163 million in Q4 last year. We played lucky in Q1, which increased our EBITDA by HKD 59 billion. Moving into Q2, we continue to see encouraging business performance. Quarter to date, the continued recovery has been verified by the performance in April and the May Golden Week. Our grind mass revenue was around 90% of pre-COVID levels, and more importantly, our premium mass already far surpassed the 2019's level during the same period.
We're encouraged to see the progressive month-to-month recovery in both pace and magnitude since the border reopened. In mid-April, we held our first MICE event at the Galaxy International Convention Center. This was followed by the two world-class K-pop concerts, TREASURE and BLACKPINK, held in this 16,000 seats Galaxy Arena's. The feedback on the events and quality of the facilities have been outstanding. We are planning to open Raffles at Galaxy Macau later this year, where Raffles is positioned to serve our premium customer, and this will be followed by the opening of Andaz Macau in Q4. The two new hotels will add additional 1,150 rooms in our Macau portfolio, bringing our total hotel room count close to 6,000. Looking further forward, we will expect further improvement as more of our existing facilities come online following additional staff recruitment.
We now have all full complements of current hotel rooms available. We are opening additional F&B venues and the opening of new amenities such as Galaxy Arena, GICC, Raffles and Andaz, all which could drive increased visitors numbers across our existing assets. This will be further supported by increased airlift and ferry capacity to Macau, thereby allowing easier and more convenient access for visitors. We are also proceeding with the construction of Cotai Phase 4, Macau's only next generation integrated resort, which will complete our ecosystem in Cotai. As you can see, we remain highly confident about future of Macau as we continue to invest literally billions of HKD into our business. In fact, we invest approximately HKD 1.5 billion during Q1.
Our Cotai development activities, along with our existing property initiatives, also demonstrate our support of Macau during the pandemic by continuing to invest in the economy, providing jobs and supporting local SMEs, as well as our long-term commitment to help Macau achieve its vision of becoming a world center of tourism and leisure. GEG is most appreciative of the efforts of Macau government, the broader community, and our most supportive team members. Our commitment and belief in the future of Macau is evidenced by our MOP 28.4 billion commitment to Macau under our new 10-year gaming concession. We also continue to work hard at managing our cost structure.
Our Macau OpEx burn rate has declined by 26% from approximately $3.4 million per day under the normal operating conditions to $2.5 million range in Q1, which represent a 10% sequential increase over Q4 last year as business rebounds during the period and additional staff were recruited. We believe that we will create sustainable operating leverage going forward, where we expect to deliver permanent savings in OpEx with a lower staff headcount compared to 2019. Even after the full opening of Galaxy Arena, GICC, Raffles, and Andaz. GEG is in a very fortunate positions with a very strong balance sheets. Cash and liquid investments increased from HKD 26.4 billion at the end of December 2022 to HKD 28.7 billion as of end of March.
Total debts remain virtually unchanged at HKD 7.4 billion, which primarily reflects our treasury yield enhancement initiative. Our core debt remained minimal at HKD 0.4 billion, which includes zero debt associated with our Macau operations. That concludes my prepared remarks. Operator, please begin with the Q&A session.
Thank you. We will now begin our question and answer session. If you have a question for today's speakers, please press star one on your telephone keypad and you will enter the queue. After you are announced, please ask your question. If you find that your question has been answered before it is your turn to speak, please press star two to cancel your request. Once again, please press star one on your telephone keypad to ask a question. We will now take our first question from Ronald Leung from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon management. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have two questions. First of all, is it possible to share around the rough EBITDA run rate quarter to date? This is the first question. The second question is that, after phase three and four are fully rolled out, does management have any expectations for the market share potential for Galaxy longer term? Thank you very much.
Hi Ronald. Thank you very much for the questions. Quarter to date, I think we, you know, the April number is actually very great for the whole market. We have a very positive Golden Week numbers as well. Of course, during that time we have some volatility in the both VIP and the mass. In quarter to date, let me give you some color in terms of our performance in two property. For instance, in Galaxy Macau, we, the mass has already bypassed 100% of the 2019's number quarter to date, whereby our StarWorld is around 70% at the moment. Retail sales basically double, more than double our 2019's number.
Our rolling volume is actually, more than or close to more than 20% of the 2019's numbers. I think we're quite positive about that. The.
Market share.
As to market share, I think, in terms of, what we're looking in market share, I think we are quite in line with the market at the moment. Going forward with the new opening of our new pro-property, Raffles and Andaz, we are looking at a faster growth.
Understood. Thank you very much management.
Thanks Ronald.
Thank you. As a reminder, please press star one to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow you to signal. Now our next question comes from Simon Cheung from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi Ted, Peter, and Ronald. Thanks for hosting the presentations. Good results. I have two questions as well. Earlier you mentioned that you the premium mass had exceed 100% and grand mass is running at about 90%. Would you be able to share with us, you know, your GGR breakdown between the two segments year- to- date, or maybe the trend that you have seen perhaps in the last month or so? I guess what I'm trying to get at is, have we seen a noticeable improvement on the grand mass? That's the first questions. The second questions are related to junket VIP business. We've been seeing some other casino operator adding a handful of junkets VIP room at their properties.
I remember last time when we spoke, you said that you are still assessing these situations. Wondering whether you have any latest thought on that. Thank you.
I take. Thank you Simon. In terms of the premium mass and grand mass, we don't break down the details for the public. In terms of the trend, you see the premium mass actually moving much, much faster than the mass. It is also evidenced by when we look at our property visitations, it's actually still below a 2019 level, which means the premium mass is actually growing faster than the grand mass one. In terms of the junkets operation, we are still waiting for the final approval in terms of the law in the related to junkets. We're still evaluating situations, but probably we will be able to open up our first junket rooms very soon, perhaps in the next month or so.
Other than that, there's nothing to update. I think we will continue to evaluate the situation. Our focus at the moment is really on the premium direct. As I said earlier, our premium direct is doing pretty great. You know, our number is actually, in terms of volumes, bypassed 2019's number, and we're quite encouraged about that. Thank you.
Great. Thanks a lot. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. As a final reminder, to ask a question please signal by pressing star one. We will pause for just a moment to allow you to signal. We have a question from DS Kim from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hey thank you. Hi Ted Chan. Hi Peter Caveny and Ronald To. Thanks for taking my questions. My first one is regarding our staff count. I think I saw in the press release that we would add 900 jobs additionally, including those needed for phase three. May I confirm if this means our total staff count would only be around 18,000 before phase four open versus 22,000 back in 2019. I think this feels like a huge efficiency gain and just wanted to double-check. I have one more follow-up.
Thank you. Thanks for following our numbers very closely. The 900 locals, you know, when we hire additional staff, there's local and also foreigner. When staff leave, we also have local and foreigner. The 900 locals is the net number that we recruited during this payroll for the locals. In terms of total number, you are correct. Pre-pandemic, we are around 22,000 headcounts at the moment. After all the properties, new properties being opened up, we will be close to 19,000. It will be more than, literally more than 10% of permanent saving going forward. You know, the staff costs represent roughly about 80% of our OpEx. We can actually easily look at, a OpEx savings, more than 10% going forward after all our new facilities being opened up.
Thank you. Thanks for the clarification. I think that's amazing efficiency gain. My follow-up is about earlier Simon comment is similar regarding VIPs, especially StarWorld, I noticed that we haven't had any the VIP business for about now five quarters. Do we plan to resume VIP business either premium direct or junkets in the coming quarters as now volume recover? Do you want to keep it as a pure mass, pure premium mass boutique casino for foreseeable future?
StarWorld is an interesting property in Peninsula, and it's in Peninsula side, still represent about 30% of the total GGR in the Q1 . I think it will sustain the number going forward. We see some unique opportunity over there. If we look at StarWorld, we have a month-on-month great improvement in purely looking at it on the mass side. I think we'll continue to evaluate the situations. Of course, the issue is we don't have enough, you know, suites in StarWorld that we would love to put more premium direct customer over there. I think we have to look at the situation going forward and make some decisions.
Thank you so much for your insight. Congrats on great quarter and even better, Q2 to date. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now move to our next question from George Choi from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Thanks Ted for the opportunity to shoot my questions. Given the success that you had with TREASURE and BLACKPINK, I just wonder what would you be doing going forward. I was in Macau just over the weekend, and I saw some advertisement for another K-pop group that you'll be hosting soon. If possible can you share with us with more details about that, please?
Okay. For the, I'm happy you were there, you know, during the past weekend. Very busy weekend. Of course, in terms of going forward, we will, with the opening of Galaxy Arena, it gave us a big opportunity for us to host more of international events like BLACKPINK and similar. Not limited to the Korean K-pop, of course. More international one and also those that our player love. Give you some color in terms of the performance in the weekend. I would say, past weekend, was the best weekend post Golden Week in all metrics. Particular for our retails and slot business. Our retails has a big spike during the concert dates.
We continue to look at this opportunity to bring in more shows, and also that will benefit a lot of our visitations and business across our properties.
Ted, I think I saw some advertisement on another K-pop group, SUPER JUNIOR. Did I say that correctly or am I seeing something wrong?
That's correct.
Thank you.
Thanks.
I didn't see for that. Thank you very much.
Thanks for following so closely on that, George.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are currently no more questions in the queue.