GE says Olympics bring in $100m in sales
General Electric sold about $100m (£63.6m) of lights, power supplies and medical devices for the London Olympic Games, less than for Beijing’s massive build-out but still enough to justify the largest US conglomerate’s sponsorship, according to officials.
Since signing on as a top-level Olympic sponsor in 2005, GE has generated about $1 billion in revenue from selling equipment for the stadiums and athlete villages in Torino, Beijing and Vancouver — with about half that amount coming from China’s 2008 games.
“At the time when Beijing went for the Olympics, they invested a lot. There was just a lot more to be built and developed,” said Beth Comstock, GE’s chief marketing officer. “London has a much more measured approach in terms of infrastructure, but we certainly are happy that we participated.”
The backers of the London games spent about $14 billion in building new Olympic venues and overhauling existing sites, well less than the estimated $40 billion that China spent.
The Fairfield, Connecticut-based company declined to say how much it paid for its Olympic sponsorship — Olympic contracts prohibit sponsors from disclosing the amount — but said the revenue generated from Olympic projects has justified its sponsorship.
“It has been a good return for us,” said Comstock. “It has been easily justifiable, a no-brainer in terms