LED Revenue Growth, NBC Earnings, and GE's recovery

GE sees growth in LED revenue
“LEDs are probably the largest growth area” for the lighting industry, Michael Petras, chief executive officer of GE's lighting business, said in an interview in Frankfurt Monday. LEDs make up “less than 10 percent” of GE Lighting's global sales, and that proportion probably will rise to one-third by 2015, with the overall market doubling “in the next couple of years,” he said.

GE Lighting's sales will be “flat or slightly positive” this year, Petras said. They fell to $2.5 billion in 2009 from $2.8 billion in 2008, according to presentations on GE's Web site. GE is the world's third- largest lighting company, after Royal Philips Electronics and Siemens's Osram. Its Appliances & Lighting division is headquartered in Louisville.

NBC Universal earnings drag down parent General Electric's results

NBC Universal is relieved that its winter financial wipeout is finally over.

Parent company General Electric Co. on Friday released its first-quarter results, which included, as expected, substantial losses generated by NBC's coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.
Although GE posted a 32% drop in earnings, the company nonetheless beat analysts' expectations.
GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt said there were signs the economy was improving, along with the industrial giant's profit margins -- except for a couple of problem divisions.
"NBC, because of the Olympics, was a drag on margins overall," Immelt said.
NBC Universal's operating profit of $199 million was down 49% compared with the first quarter of 2009. Revenue of $4.32 billion for the quarter was up 23% compared with the year-earlier period, but it was about flat when ad sales for the Olympics were excluded from the results.
GE executives warned investors several months ago that NBC would lose as much as $250 million on its coverage of the Vancouver Olympic Games -- but it did not turn out as bad as first feared. NBC ended up losing $223 million on the Olympics, GE said, thanks to better-than-anticipated advertising.
General Electric Rehab On Track
General Electric's road to recovery may be rocky, but it's on the road nonetheless as it beat Wall Street's views on first quarter profit.

Among the most important morsels withing GE's report was the update on the progress of GE's financial arm GE Capital Services. The good news is GE Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt said losses appear to have peaked, but that's not to say the problems will be over anytime soon. GE Capital was able to report earnings of $607 million in the first quarter, but commercial real estate continues to be "challenging". Thankfully, losses, delinquencies and non-earning assets have also declined during the first quarter.