Last month, China Mobile, the mobile communications partner for the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (BOCOG), started procuring the equipment needed to operate TD-SCDMA. It will soon deploy this in the seven host cities of the Games.

Meanwhile, Samsung will play a key role in building a wireless Olympics featuring its WOW phones.

"After we start our deployment, you will see our first WOW phones," said Kim.

He told China Daily that Samsung now has four engineers working side by side with China Mobile at the BOCOG headquarters to develop mobile services for people joining the world's largest sporting event.

Samsung will offer its WOW services for the third time after giving them trial runs at the Athens Games in 2004 and at the Turin Winter Olympics in 2006, based on the 2G GSM technology.

It will also run a roadshow in the second half of this year at some Chinese cities so the public can see the latest Olympic phones.

Chinese IT company Lenovo, also a TOP partner, held an Olympic roadshow last year in almost 1,000 cities and counties, one of the few companies to show such impressive market penetration. The campaign boosted Lenovo's sales in both the individual consumer and SME markets by around 50 percent.

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Samsung Electronics has been regarded as one of the most successful TOP partners ever and a master in Olympic sponsorship.

When it first became a sponsor for the IOC in 1998, Samsung's brand was valued at $3.2 billion, according to professional consultants Interbrand and its share of the global handset market was a mere 5 percent.

Last year, its brand value reached $16.2 billion while its market share leapt to 11.6 percent.

Li Lan, vice-president of Olympic marketing with the Chinese Lenovo Group, said in an earlier interview that one of the first things her company did after winning the TOP sponsorship was to meet Samsung Electronics executives.

Kim said his company may launch its Olympic marketing campaign in June in Beijing.

One big challenge is the overcrowding that surrounds the Beijing Games, which have already attracted around 40 sponsors. This makes it crucial for them to coordinate closely and carefully plan their campaigns.

"We only have 10 years of history of TOP sponsorship, but Coca Cola has been sponsoring the Olympic Games for about 80 years, so we need to learn from other partners," said Kim.

He said Samsung Electronics is involved in discussions with other TOP and BOCOG partners such as Coca Cola on joint programs for the Beijing Olympics.

The company will show its hospitable side by inviting its top clients to the Olympic Games' venues next summer.

In the Turin winter games, 300 couples were invited by the South Korean gian and Kim estimated the number in 2008 will be much bigger.