Leading Macau casino operator Sands China Ltd is well and truly profitable again, the company has revealed, with gaming volumes comfortably outperforming visitation recovery during the current Chinese New Year holiday period.
Speaking to industry analysts during parent company Las Vegas Sands’ 4Q22 earnings call, Chairman and CEO Robert Goldstein was quick to establish the rate of recovery at Sands China’s Macau resorts since the reopening of borders on 8 January, stating, “We’re more than breakeven and into very positive territory.”
“In terms of break-even, I don’t think that’s even a consideration anymore,” added President and COO Patrick Dumont. “I think we’re way past it.”
Their comments will come as welcome news to investors, who have been anxiously awaiting some much-needed positivity following three years of border closures and heavy losses.
As reported by Inside Asian Gaming, visitation to Macau has been steadily rising since reopening and reached 90,000 on Tuesday in the midst of the Chinese New Year holiday – the highest daily tally in three years although still less than half of average visitation during CNY in 2019.
But Sands China, the first of Macau’s six concessionaires to report its 4Q22 results and host an earnings call, revealed that GGR recovery is tracking way above visitation.
“The thing that we’re seeing right now is that the quality of patronage is very high across all segments,” said Sands China COO and Executive Director, Grant Chum.
“We are seeing a very strong recovery. If you look at visitation numbers to Macau, we are currently running at about 40% of where we were in the 2019 Chinese New Year but our revenues and volumes are outperforming that visitation recovery.
“So I wouldn’t get too stuck on the visitation recovery. In these types of reopening we are going to see the premium customers coming back first, so what we’re seeing is the quality of revenues and patronage has been very, very high and we are way outperforming the visitation recovery in terms of volume and revenue. And If you look at property visitations, our recovery rate in terms visitation to our own (Sands) properties is far outperforming recovery in the overall visitation numbers in the market.”
According to Goldstein, patronage to its resorts during CNY has been so high that table game and slots occupancy has been close to 100%.
“No-one ever questioned the power of the base mass market and I would remind you that base mass in Macau at our properties starts at HK$1,500 (US$190) per hand. That’s a big bet but the problem we’ve got now is you can’t get a seat at those games. We’re running at 95% to 100% occupancy in those games and it’s the same on slots and ETGs.
“The big question that we’re thinking about is premium mass and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised when the numbers come out. You’ll see resilience and liquidity in that segment as well. We are in very positive territory.”
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