Las Vegas Sands President and COO Rob Goldstein says the company expects its Macau arm, Sands China Ltd, to dominate the lucrative premium mass segment in the coming years, despite losing some market share in 2Q19.
His confidence in the company’s future premium mass prospects came during Thursday’s second quarter earnings call as Goldstein revealed Sands China would bring the first of around 290 new high-end suites at Four Seasons online this coming autumn, followed by some new suites at The Londoner Macao from 2020.
“We’re building 1,200 exceptional suites for The Londoner and Four Seasons and these are large, very large, stunning suites, the highest quality [of which] will open throughout 2019,” he said. “Some will actually open this fall throughout 2020. And these suites are laser focused on the premium mass customer at the highest level. Our suite product will exceed most of our competitors in key count by the end of 2020.”
While Sands China enjoyed a 15% year-on-year and 1% sequential increase in grind mass revenue to US$756 million in 2Q19, premium mass fell 4% year-on-year and 18% sequentially to US$635 million.
However, Goldstein pointed to hold rather than volume as the key reason for the statistical decline and said the addition of new product once Sands Cotai Central’s transformation to The Londoner Macao is complete – combined with the 290 Four Seasons suites and further upgrades at The Venetian Macao – puts the company in “a position for the future that is dominant.”
“We have the largest base mass business by far in Macau … [and] the largest premium mass business in Macau,” Goldstein said.
“Macau rewards quality product and scale and we have the product to drive exceptional premium mass play as a result of our products. We expect to dominate that segment in the same manner we dominate base mass play.”
