Asia Pioneer Entertainment (APE) has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with global playing card manufacturer Cartamundi to introduce BEE-branded playing card production into Macau. This happened on the same day the company’s chairman told shareholders the group was moving into table games and gaming floor solutions for the first time in its 20-year history.
The agreement was signed at the Macao International Environmental Co-operation Forum and Exhibition (MIECF), an official Macau SAR government platform, in late March. It marks Cartamundi’s first confirmed entry into Macau’s casino card supply chain. The Belgian manufacturer, whose portfolio includes the BEE and Bicycle brands, has no previously documented presence supplying playing cards to the city’s licensed casino floors.
Distributor broadening its footprint
The deal lands at a precise moment. On the same day, APE filed its audited FY2025 annual results on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, in which chairman Allen Huie stated the group was planning to distribute “products pertaining to table games or solutions for the gaming floor.” The filing made no reference to the Cartamundi agreement. The signing fell after the 31 December 2025 reporting period. The two disclosures share only a date.
APE has operated as a licensed electronic gaming equipment (EGE) distributor in Macau since 2005, supplying all six of the city’s casino concessionaires. That core business performed strongly in the year just reported. Group revenue rose 29.7 percent to HKD65.8 million ($8.4 million), with net profit climbing 63.3 percent to HKD6.1 million ($780,000). The strength of the business APE is building beyond makes the timing of the Cartamundi agreement harder to read as coincidental.
Herman Ng, APE’s chief executive, said the partnership would “not only benefit the local economy but also set new benchmarks for sustainable manufacturing.” Jason Pearce, executive vice president for the Asia-Pacific region at Cartamundi, described Macau as “the ideal platform for our next steps,” adding that the agreement was “only the beginning of a journey that will bring global innovation closer to Macau.”
Macau as a base
The Cartamundi deal is not the only signal of expansion in APE’s filing. It revealed that it is in the process of applying for distributor licenses in Abu Dhabi and Singapore, and has arranged a credit facility of HKD20 million ($2.5 million) with Banco Nacional Ultramarino to aid the process.
The business environment in which the company operates lends credence to its ambition. Macau’s gross gaming revenue grew 9.1 percent in 2025 to MOP247.4 billion ($30.9 billion), with visitor arrivals reaching 40.1 million, surpassing the pre-pandemic record.
For a distributor with established relationships across all six concessionaires, those conditions represent both a stable revenue base and a platform for expanding what it sells into those same properties.
APE has a gaming inspection and coordination bureau (DICJ) licence to be an approved gaming machine agent and is also shortlisted for the Casino Supplier of the Year category at the Global Gaming Awards 2025. This is the commercial rationale behind entering new categories of related products.
What comes next
Huie told shareholders the group intends to introduce new products “prudently” and hoped to share further detail within the year. The Cartamundi agreement, signed the same morning, is the first named step toward that commitment.
What is confirmed is the direction. A company that built two decades of revenue on electronic gaming hardware has, in a single filing day, told its shareholders it is moving into the broader casino floor and shown the first product it plans to take there.
Step inside the world’s biggest iGaming community. Join HERE for weekly updates from the world’s iGaming authority and unlock subscriber-only offers.
