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General Electric Profit, Revenue Beat Forecasts
General Electric reported a 21.6 percent rise in profit, topping estimates, boosted by strong demand outside the United States for its heavy equipment including jet engines and electric turbines.
The largest U.S. conglomerate , whose shares were up 2.3 percent in premarket trading, said 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 . Analysts had expected $34.7 billion.
GE is a minority shareholder in CNBC and CNBC.com.
The strongest growth came in the company's railroad locomotive unit, which posted a 74 percent surge in revenue following an extended downturn.
The energy unit stood out as a weak spot, with a 19 percent drop in profit, reflecting slower demand for wind turbines and the cost of integrating recently acquired companies.
"We are optimistic about our growth prospects in the second half and beyond," said Chief Executive Jeff Immelt.
Investors said the results showed the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company's focus on emerging markets was paying off.
"GE's strategy of growth in developing nations and energy and infrastructure and health care and technology is serving it well," said Perry Adams, vice president and senior portfolio manager at Huntington Private Financial Group, in Traverse City, Michigan, which holds GE shares.
GE joins a slew of big U.S. manufacturers reporting second-quarter results this week. Their results have been mixed. Companies that do a lot of business outside the United States, such as United Technologies , have exceeded Wall Street's expectations.
Those with significant exposure to U.S. consumers, including Ingersoll Rand , have fallen short.
GE shares were higher in premarket trading. Get real-time quotes for General Electric here.
As of Thursday's close, GE shares had risen about 26 percent over the past 12 months, ahead of the 23 percent rise of the Dow Jones industrial average.
The industrial side of the business is "a larger and larger percent of the whole business," Jack de Gan, Principal and Senior Advisor at Harbor Advisory, told CNBC.
The capital moves that GE is making "are all things that are very shareholder-friendly," de Gan said, adding that another dividend rise may be in the cards within a year.
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