By Sarah Falson
BEIJING: Samsung has signed on for the seventh period of The Olympic Partnership (TOP) program which will see the consumer electronics giant extend its sponsorship of the Olympic Games until 2016.
The partnership between the IOC and Samsung began in 1997, and will now continue for another eight years.
The Beijing Olympic Games is expected to be the climax of the company’s efforts for the last ten years, according to the brand, with Samsung’s brand value growing from $3.1 billion in 1999 to $16.2 billion in 2006, according to the company’s research.
Samsung’s global mobile phone market share also went up from five percent from 1999 to 11.6 per cent in 2006, with its sales volume increasing seven times from 16.65 million to units to 114 million units in the same period.
Samsung will demonstrate its cutting-edge wireless technology at the Olympic Games, displaying its corporate philosophy, ‘contribute to society’. Wireless Olympic Works (WOW), first released by Samsung for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, is a service that enables the real-time transmission of Olympic Games information to mobile phones, and will continue at the Beijing Games.
“The Olympics is the world’s biggest sporting event, so irrespective of which country you’re in, people tune in to watch it.
We are the world’s biggest consumer electronics brand, but we haven’t always been — affiliations like this helped us to be,” Samsung Mobile marketing manager, Jenny Goodridge, told Current.com.au
“Mobile phones have a much bigger selling propensity than other products and the biggest growth of our products through the Olympics sponsorship has been through phones.”
Samsung works alongside Telstra to deliver wireless content to the public during the Olympics – Telstra is also a sponsor of the Australian swimming team at the Olympics.