There's plenty to parse in a quarterly earnings release from General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE). The headline for the company's first-quarter results, released on Friday, was the 35% profit drop on a 9% decline in revenue, to $38.4 billion, comparatively good news, since it was less than analysts had expected. Bloomberg has the
overview.
But at a company as sprawling as GE, subplots abound. One question that comes to mind: How is the company doing in its acquisition-fed drive to increase higher-margin service revenue in businesses such as healthcare, energy and aviation?
Judging from this quarter's results, pretty well. A
slide from the Friday morning Webcast shows service revenue up 7% in the quarter over the previous quarter.
One big contributor was aviation services, up 18%, according to the company. In the most recent acquisition here, GE in March payed $300 million to buy out Teleflex Inc., its partner in
an engine-servicing joint venture. Pipeline subscribers can get the details
here.
GE also singled out its Energy Wind Turbine Services -- no doubt a much smaller revenue stream, but up 25%. You can read about those services, which include operating wind turbines,
here.
Healthcare service revenue, on the other hand, was down 2%. But GE is still keen on growing them, as witness the
alliance with Intel Corp. (NASDQ:INTC) it announced earlier this month, to develop patient-monitoring technologies. --
Kenneth Klee
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