- BOSTON; General Electric Co.
- reported a 21.6 percent rise in profit, topping estimates, boosted by strong demand outside the US for its heavy equipment including jet engines and electric turbines.
The largest US conglomerate, whose shares were up 2.3 percent in premarket trading, said on Friday second-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders came to $3.69 billion, or 35 cents per share, compared with $3.03 billion, or 28 cents per share, a year earlier.
Factoring out one-time items, profit was 34 cents per share. On that basis, analysts had looked for profit of 32 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Revenue fell 3.5 percent to $35.63 billion, from a prior-year $37.44 billion, reflecting the sale of a majority stake in its NBC Universal business to Comcast Corp. Analysts had expected $34.7 billion.
GE joins a slew of big US manufacturers reporting second-quarter results this week.
Their results have been mixed. Companies that do a lot of business outside the US, such as United Technologies Corp, have exceeded Wall Street’s expectations.
Those with significant exposure to US consumers, including Ingersoll Rand Plc, have fallen short.

