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.
