US conglomerate General Electric's profit for the 2009 December quarter tumbled to $3 billion, bogged down by a steep decline in earnings from its finance division.
GE's profit from continuing operations slumped 22 per cent to $3 billion for the last three months of 2009. In the comparable period, the same stood at $3.9 billion.
The entity in a statement today said its revenues too dropped 10 per cent to $41.4 billion in the December quarter compared to the same period a year ago.
Good growth at Energy Infrastructure and Consumer & Industrial units were more than offset by "declines of 67 per cent at Capital Finance, 30 per cent at NBC Universal and 16 per cent at Technology Infrastructure," GE noted.
For 2009, GE has recorded profit from continuing operations of $11.2 billion, a decline of 38 per cent as compared to the year-ago period. In 2008, it had a profit of $18.1 billion.
"GE's environment has improved and we saw some encouraging signs at year-end," the conglomerate's Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said.
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"During the difficult economy of 2009, we took a series of actions to improve GE so that we would be positioned for growth in the future," Immelt said.
He pointed out that GE Capital has been repositioned to be "safer and more focused".