Sands China has announced it will adopt a significantly more aggressive customer reinvestment strategy in Macau, acknowledging that the company has underperformed in the market in recent quarters.
Although the completion of the multi-billion-dollar transformation of The Londoner Macao has brought some positive momentum, company leadership, speaking on Thursday’s Q2 2025 earnings call, emphasized that current market share and EBITDA levels still fall short of expectations.
As a result, the company has initiated a comprehensive review of its customer engagement strategy. It plans to continue increasing reinvestment efforts, targeting an annual EBITDA run rate of $2.7 billion, up from the current level of $2.2 billion.
In Q2, Sands China reported an Adjusted Property EBITDA of $566 million.
“We have underperformed in this market,” said Rob Goldstein, the Chairman and CEO of Sands China’s parent company Las Vegas Sands.
“We have not addressed enough as it relates to customer reinvestment. We believed our buildings would be enough [to attract more customers]. We were wrong. And so, throughout the quarter, we changed our approach to enable us to increase our market share and EBITDA.
“We are now fully engaged in the competitive battle. While we are not yet leading, we have at least become a full participant in the market, and that is progress,” he added.
Goldstein noted that the company aims for its two main properties – The Londoner Macao and The Venetian Macao – to generate a combined EBITDA of $2 billion annually. Additionally, Four Seasons and The Parisian are expected to contribute around $300 million each, while Sands Macao should deliver approximately $100 million per year.
“Our short-term goal, my goal, is that we can get that US$2.7 billion run rate and come off the bottom here,” he said. “I think at US$2.2 we’re just not performing well enough. We have the best assets. This is just our acknowledgement that we did not do a good enough job in that environment, and we’re doing it now. We have full faith in our team over there and our assets to perform and get us back in the game.”
Grant Chum, CEO, President, and Executive Director of Sands China, stated that the company began implementing a more aggressive customer reinvestment strategy in the second half of the second quarter and is already seeing encouraging initial results.
“I think we will continue to adjust to the market conditions as and when necessary and we’re also looking at opportunities for us to perform better at our smaller properties – The Parisian and Sands Macao,” he said. “Overall, the reception to Londoner has been phenomenal, and we’re getting positive feedback from customers, so that’s obviously growing nicely, but the rest of the portfolio, we have to adjust our reinvestment levels according to the product.”
Patrick Dumont, President and COO of Las Vegas Sands, added, “We’re not where we want to be in Macau. We feel like we’ve made a great investment, we have a great product, and we believe we can grow EBITDA from here. We have work to do in our reinvestment programs, we have things we think we can do to be more competitive, and we’re going to take some action. We think we have an approach that in the long run will create growth for us in terms of revenue and EBITDA.”
The competitive marketing environment in Macau has remained intense since the post-COVID period. Last year, during quarterly earnings reports, representatives from Melco Resorts and MGM China openly exchanged criticisms.
Despite claims from some companies that competitive pressure has eased, Chum disagrees.
“The market remains highly competitive,” he emphasized. “The intensity hasn’t slowed at all. The difference this quarter is that we are in the mix now in terms of reinvestment levels into the customer, and the response is encouraging.
“That process will continue, and we will continue to evaluate, but we don’t expect the competitive environment in Macau to relax anytime soon.”
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