General Electric Co. expects to be a big winner at the Olympics in Beijing next year.
With work at Beijing’s National Stadium, athletic fields, subways and international airport among other projects, Fairfield-based GE is pulling in $500 million in China to prepare for the Summer Olympics, strengthening its foothold in a market critically important to the international conglomerate’s global strategy. The company has more than 300 projects related to the Beijing Olympics, which will begin next August.
GE, which will also televise the Olympics through its subsidiary, NBC, hopes the work will help boost the company’s sales in China to $10 billion by 2010.
“What started as an NBC relationship has become a total company relationship,” said John G. Rice, vice chairman of GE and president and chief executive of its infrastructure business. “We’re trying to get all aspects of the company involved.”
Much of GE’s work in and around Beijing, fire detection and security systems in Beijing’s subways, baggage screening at Beijing Capital International Airport and power distribution, will remain long after the games end.
“It’s tremendous brand recognition,” Rice said. “We become a much more significant player and much more well known.”
The Beijing Olympics gives GE a chance to showcase itself not only in China, but in other emerging markets looking to build infrastructure, some analysts say.
“They want to get the name recognition out there for sure, make themselves a trusted go-to name in a lot of these areas,” said Mark Demos, portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management in Minneapolis. “It’s a huge opportunity in China. The opportunity is there. It’s a matter of who sells the stuff,” he said.
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Above And Beyond
GE has been a player at previous Olympics, most recently providing power for the three Olympic villages and the broadcast center at Torino, Italy, in 2006. Its work in China, however, far outreaches previous efforts as it fits with the company’s strategy of expanding into emerging markets.
GE has been working to boost the company’s profitability by shedding slow-growth businesses, such as its plastics division, and expand into growing markets like China, India, southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
