Sands China executives told analysts during parent company Las Vegas Sands’ 4Q25 earnings call that they remain disappointed with the quarter’s EBITDA result, despite seeing Adjusted Property EBITDA grow by 6.5% year-on-year and 1.2% quarter-on-quarter to US$608 million.
However, a recent move to place greater emphasis on being more aggressive on the promotional front is starting to show results, with the company insisting it is happy with the upwards trajectory it is currently on.
Sands China stated mid-year 2025 that it needed to adopt a more aggressive approach to customer reinvestment after lagging behind its Macau peers, claiming at the time that it had wrongly expected the quality of its integrated resorts would be enough to drive greater market share.
In Thursday morning’s 4Q25 earnings call, the company said it has since addressed those issues but remains disappointed with the latest EBITDA figure – even as group-wide net revenue jumped 8.4% from Q3 to US$2.06 billion.
Notably, LVS Chairman and CEO Robert Goldstein noted that Sands was negatively impacted by the slower recovery of the base mass market in Macau, a segment in which it has traditionally proven difficult to beat given the sheer scale of its resort offerings.
“The Macau market is driven by the premium segment, and this is a highly competitive market,” he said. “There may be a day when base mass recovers, and we will excel when that day comes.”
Nevertheless, Sands China CEO and Executive Director Grant Chum said progress had been made on the promotional front since the company outlayed its concerns last year.
“I think we’re moving in the right direction in terms of customer growth, in terms of revenue growth across all the segments,” he explained. “Obviously, Macau right now is driven by the premium segments, both in rolling and non-rolling, and that’s where we are getting most of our growth.”
A sequential decline in operating margin in Q4 was, Chum added, due to higher player reinvestment, the shift in mix even further towards rolling and the high-end of premium mass, plus greater event costs and an increase in operating table-hour capacity – more tables open to better serve customers.
“We’re really focused on growing both revenue and EBITDA and I think we’ve made some great progress this quarter,” added LVS President and COO, Patrick Dumont.
“If you look at some of our top-line numbers, we’ve definitely grown. We’ve had success in both rolling and non-rolling and slots as well. But when you look over our comps, we’re still working through some of the changes that we’ve made.
“The market definitely has become more promotional over time. It is much more premium-focused and [promotional spend] goes hand-in-hand with that segment.
“That being said, we’re being very competitive and I think we’re seeing the results related to our positioning as we look to be more promotional and as we add the right service levels to ensure that we can take care of these customers in a way that allows them to keep coming back.
“We’ve made a lot of important changes and I think we’re in a position to do better over time. And while this quarter may not have produced the results that we want, on an EBITDA basis, we see growth, we see better market positioning, we see revenue share growth and we’re heading in the right direction.”
The Sands China team was also asked by analysts about the evolution of baccarat side bets in the Macau market – particularly given the revolutionary impact they have had at the company’s Singapore resort, Marina Bay Sands.
LVS revealed during the previous quarter’s earnings call (3Q25) that it had decided to abandon standard hold calculations for rolling baccarat at MBS because the increased adoption of side bets – made possible by smart table technology – had created a scenario where even expected hold can now fluctuate wildly from quarter to quarter.
Chum this morning said side bets were not yet as popular in Macau as in Singapore but are showing some incremental improvement.
“We have been continuously rolling out additional wager options on the background layouts [in Macau] and we’ve been having progressively more success in attracting volume against those side wagers,” he said.
“The level of participation in the side wagers is not as high as Singapore, but it is on an increasing trend. And we’ll continue to innovate in terms of offering more fun and interesting side wager options in the traditional game of baccarat and also other games as well in terms of additional wager options.
“So, that will continue. We are seeing a rising interest in these side wagers, but it’s just not as high a level as what you see at Marina Bay Sands.”
