General Electric Company (GE) is a diversified technology, media and financial services company. Its products and services include aircraft engines, power generation, water processing, security technology, medical imaging, business and consumer financing, media content and industrial products. As of December 31, 2008, GE operated in five segments: Energy Infrastructure, Technology Infrastructure, NBC Universal, Capital Finance and Consumer & Industrial. In January 2009, the Company acquired Interbanca S.p.A., an Italian corporate bank. In April 2008, Oil & Gas completed the acquisition of the Hydril Pressure Controls business from Tenaris. In September 2008, the Company announced the sale of its Japanese consumer finance business to Shinsei Bank. During the year ended December 31, 2008, the Company acquired Whatman plc; Vital Signs, Inc.; Merrill Lynch Capital, and CitiCapital.In September 2009, the Company completed the acquisition of ScanWind.
Businesses
Main article: List of assets owned by General Electric
GE's divisions include GE Capital (including GE Commercial Finance and GE Money and GE Consumer Finance), GE Technology Infrastructure (including GE Aviation,the former Smiths Aerospace and GE Healthcare), GE Energy Infrastructure (including GE Energy Financial Services), GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms and NBC Universal, an entertainment company.
Through these businesses, GE participates in a wide variety of markets including the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity (eg. Nuclear, gas and solar), lighting, industrial automation, medical imaging equipment, motors, railway locomotives, aircraft jet engines, and aviation services. It co-founded and is 80% owner (with Vivendi) of NBC Universal, the National Broadcasting Company. Through GE Commercial Finance, GE Consumer Finance, GE Equipment Services, and GE Insurance it offers a range of financial services as well. It has a presence in over 100 countries.
GE gauges to control a railway locomotive.
Since over half of GE's revenue is derived from financial services, it is arguably a financial company with a manufacturing arm. It is also one of the largest lenders in countries other than the United States, such as Japan. Even though the first wave of conglomerates (such as ITT Corporation, Ling-Temco-Vought, Tenneco, etc) fell by the wayside by the mid-1980s, in the late 1990s, another wave (consisting of Westinghouse, Tyco, and others) tried and failed to emulate GE's success.
It was announced on May 4, 2008 that GE would auction off its appliances business for an expected sale of $5–8 billion. GE appliance brands in the United States include: GE, GE Profile, GE Cafe, Monogram and Hotpoint.
The Finnish RFI filter firm DICRO Oy was founded in 1987 and bought out an older rival RFI filter firm named GE Procond Oy on February 13, 2006, which was renamed to Procond Oy and until then part of GE, but now may be sold off too.
Competition
GE competes against a number of other companies, but most of them are more specialized, focusing in one industry. GE's operations, on the other hand, are spread across many different industries, limiting its exposure to competition from any one company.
Of GE' competitors, Siemens AG (SI) is the most significant. Siemens operates in a number of different industries, many of which it shares with GE. In fact, NBC Universal is the only of GE's six divisions that Siemens does not directly compete with. Despite GE's size advantage, however, Siemens is still a very large company in its own right, and it's the only company that effectively competes against GE in nearly all of its main industries.
Industry
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