MGM China President and Executive Director Kenneth Feng says the company’s incredible resurgence post-pandemic results from a “deep understanding” of its premium mass customers.
In comments made during the 1Q24 earnings call of parent company MGM Resorts, Feng acknowledged that MGM has a head-start when it comes to smart RFID/AI tables – which it first installed as far back as 2016 – but added the company has also worked hard to refresh its product offering to better suit an evolving player market.
“People are always asking how we are leading this market, why we are recovering in this way after COVID,” he explained.
“I just want to make a little bit of comment on that. What differentiates us in the market is really company-wide, from the senior management, we possess a deep outstanding of our customers, particularly the premium mass [customers], from their culture, their habits, behavior, background profile, even their home province and dialects.
“China is a vast country with a huge supply of nearly everything like cutting-edge technology and various hospitality products. Over the past three years, we didn’t waste our time and kept innovating and refreshing our products, our services to meet the ever-changing customer expectations.
“So, we are [continuing to do] that. We just launched two casino F&B outlets in April, which have been well received on social media and by customers.”
Feng’s comments came after MGM Resorts CEO and President Bill Hornbuckle took issue with criticism of the company’s promotional activity, which was described (without directly naming MGM) by Macau rival Melco Resorts earlier in the week as “crazy behavior”.
In response, Hornbuckle pointed to MGM China’s 29% margins in Q1 as evidence that such spend was reasonable.
“I just query that [criticism] and I challenge it,” he said. “And frankly, if we had retail to the extent that two of our competitors do, [margins] would be in the low-to-mid 30s.”
