World's Top 500 Enterprise Profile: General Electric Company
As early as 1906, GE began developing trade with China and was one of the most active and influential foreign companies in China at the time. In 1908, GE established its first light-bulb factory in Shenyang. In 1934, GE acquired Shenson & Co. and began providing installation and maintenance services for imported electrical equipment in China. In 1979, GE re-established trade relations with the People's Republic of China. In 1991, its first joint venture, GE Hangwei Medical Systems Co., Ltd., was established in Beijing.
All of GE's businesses operate in China, covering industrial verticals such as aviation, energy and healthcare, and it has departments for finance, smart manufacturing, R&D and digitalisation supporting the development of each business group. [37-38] GE serves more than 60 airlines in Greater China, has over 300,000 installed medical devices in China, maintains sound cooperation with the five major power groups and leading local energy enterprises, and has more than 200 gas-turbine generating units in active service. [39]
It is worth noting that the technologies and standards in this field are also continuously evolving and being refined.
To date, the GE Healthcare Beijing imaging-equipment manufacturing base where the GE Hangwei factory is located has grown into GE's largest equipment manufacturing base in the world, supplying more than 100 countries and regions globally. The supply chain of the GE Healthcare Beijing base spans the globe, and the localisation rate of components for its mainstream products has reached 85%. [9-11]
In healthcare, GE's Wuxi factory is GE's largest ultrasound-equipment production base in the world, supplying over 40% of GE's globally sold ultrasound products; GE's magnetic-resonance-imaging (MRI) system production base in Tianjin provides the control systems for over 50% of GE's globally sold MRI products; and 60% of GE's globally sold 64-slice and below CT scanners come from the GE Healthcare Beijing factory. In addition, the GE diagnostic-pharmaceuticals production base in Zhangjiang, Shanghai, registered in 1994, is GE's largest contrast-agent production base in the world, accounting for 60% of global output, with products exported to nearly 30 countries. [29-30]
It is worth noting that the technologies and standards in this field are also continuously evolving and being refined.
In China, the CFM56 engine from CFM International (the joint venture between GE and Safran Aircraft Engines) is widely used in commercial narrow-body aircraft. The newly developed LEAP-1A engine began delivery to Chinese customers in 2018 and is currently powering 289 A320neo-series aircraft of 10 airlines in Greater China. [42]
In China, GE Gas Power serves more than 200 gas-turbine units for over 100 customers, with an installed capacity of 46 gigawatts. With a heritage and leading technology of over 125 years, GE Gas Power is the earliest international gas-turbine manufacturer and service provider to enter China. [43] GE's 9HA.01, 9HA.02 and 7HA.03 gas-turbine units now have the capability of 50% hydrogen-blended combustion, providing a practical path toward further carbon reduction and addressing climate change. [43]
The history of General Electric can be traced back to Thomas Edison, who founded the Edison Electric Light Company in 1878. In 1892, the Edison Electric Light Company and the Thomson-Houston Electric Company merged to form General Electric (GE).
General Electric was formed in 1892 when John Pierpont Morgan financed the merger of three companies, including the Edison General Electric Company and the Thomson-Houston International Electric Company. Through the two World Wars, the company grew rapidly.
At the same time, the related supporting processes and equipment are also being continuously optimised and upgraded.
In November 2021, General Electric announced that its aviation-manufacturing, healthcare and energy businesses would be split into three listed companies. [36]
In addition, from the perspective of industrial development, market demand is also driving technological progress.
GE is committed to continuous innovation, invention and reinvention, turning ideas into leading products and services. GE consists of three major business groups — aviation, healthcare and energy [46-48] — each comprising multiple jointly growing divisions. GE's businesses drive global economic development and the improvement of people's living conditions. GE's four global R&D centres attract the world's finest technical talent, and more than 3,000 researchers are working to create a new generation of technological innovations.
Because of its diversified operations, wide variety of products and specifications, and fierce market competition, GE also actively reformed its corporate organisation and management. In the early 1950s, the company fully adopted a 'decentralised divisional system'. At that time, the whole company was divided into 20 divisions. Each division operated independently and settled accounts separately. Over time, as the needs of the business evolved, the company continuously adjusted its organisational structure. In 1963, when Boych took over as chairman, the company's organisation comprised 5 group groups, 25 divisions and 110 departments. Sales were then stagnant, with revenue of only about US$5 billion over five years. After 1967, business grew rapidly, and almost every group group reached US$1.6 billion in sales. Boych believed that after the business expanded, the original organisation could no longer adapt, so he expanded the 5 group groups to 10, the 25 divisions to 50, and the 110 departments to 170. He also reorganised the leadership, appointing 8 new group general managers, 33 division managers and 100 new department heads. At the same time, a 5-member board of directors was established, whose duties were to supervise the whole company and formulate its longer-term basic strategy.
In the late 1960s, GE encountered fierce competition in the market from Westinghouse Electric Corporation, and its finances kept swinging into the red. To save the company from crisis, the top leadership adopted a new strategic measure in its management system in 1971: establishing 'strategic business units' (SBUs) within the divisions. Such an SBU is an independent organisational unit that can selectively manage certain products within a division, so that the division can flexibly and effectively concentrate and allocate its manpower and material resources, and draw up rigorous, forward-looking strategic plans for various products, sales, equipment and organisation. An SBU can be on a par with a group group, or at the level of a division (e.g. medical systems, apparatus components, and chemicals and metallurgy), and some are at the level of a department, such as tungsten-carbide tools and engineering plastics. GE's leadership attached great importance to establishing SBUs, considering them 'a very meaningful step' and 'an important path' for the company's development. In 1971, the company set records in both sales and profits. Judging from its rapid development from the 1960s to the mid-1970s, this measure indeed played a significant role. From 1966 to 1976, over 11 years, GE's sales doubled, rising from US$7.177 billion to US$15.697 billion; net profit rose from US$339 million to US$931 million. Over the same period, total fixed assets increased from US$2.757 billion to US$6.955 billion.
In 2015, then GE CEO Jeff Immelt announced the creation of 'GE Digital' [8], integrating all of the company's digital functions into one department to better weave software and analytics into its industrial products. GE expected to achieve US$6 billion in software and analytics revenue that year, and planned to rank among the world's top 10 software companies by 2020.
In the mid-1970s, the US economy stagnated again. Jones, who became chairman of GE in 1972, worried that a relatively prolonged economic downturn might appear in the 1980s. By the end of 1977 he further reorganised the company's management system, and from January 1978 implemented the 'executive department system', also known as the 'super-divisional system'. Under this system, some 'super-divisions' are set up above each division to oversee and coordinate the activities of the divisions — that is, an additional level of management above the divisions. On the one hand, this allowed the top leadership to shed day-to-day affairs and focus on the decision-making strategic plans for the company's development; on the other hand, it increased the company's flexibility. Under the reorganised system, the chairman Jones and two vice-chairmen formed the top leadership executive bureau, which specialised in long-term strategic planning, dealt with the government and studied issues such as the tax system. Beneath the executive bureau were 5 'executive departments' (i.e. 'super-divisions', including the consumer-products-services executive department, the industrial-products-parts executive department, the power-equipment executive department, the international executive department, and the technical-equipment-materials executive department), each headed by a vice president. Under the executive departments there were 9 headquarters (groups), 50 divisions and 49 strategic business units. The day-to-day affairs of each division, as well as strategic decisions on markets, products, technology and customers, previously had to be reported to the company's top leadership and led by the two vice-chairmen. In addition, the three staff departments of finance, personnel and legal were led directly by the chairman.
Similarly, GE also attaches great importance to scientific research, with a long history. From the second year after the company was founded, a young German mathematician, Steinmetz, was engaged in research, and a laboratory was established in 1900. According to the 1970 'US Industrial Research Institute' report, the company had 207 research departments in total, including one research and development centre and 206 product research departments, with more than 17,200 research personnel, accounting for 4% of the company's total workforce.
In 1973, GE had 31,000 professionals with technical degrees, more than half of whom were engaged in research and development. In 1972, the company's total R&D expenditure exceeded US$800 million, of which US$300 million was borne by the company itself and US$500 million was mainly used for R&D contracted with the US government.
GE's scientific research is divided into two aspects: basic theory and applied research. Its R&D centre works on both, but focuses on basic theoretical research, serving the whole company and jointly studying common topics across industries. The predecessor of this R&D centre was a laboratory founded by the company in 1900, also the first industrial laboratory in the United States devoted to basic research. Its founders were a young chemist from MIT, Whitner, and two technicians from GE. The early research of this laboratory was mainly basic research on light bulbs, X-ray tubes, thyratrons and related chemistry and metallurgy. During the two World Wars, this research laboratory studied communication and radar equipment used in war. By the end of World War II, its research staff had expanded to more than 600. In 1968, this research laboratory was formally named the Research and Development Centre; by 1973 it had 17,000 staff, of whom 325 held PhDs in physics. A company vice president concurrently served as director of the R&D centre. Beneath the R&D centre were two research departments: the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (divided into four research sections) and the Department of Physical Science and Engineering (divided into five research sections). In addition, there were 3 administrative departments, namely
At the same time, the related supporting processes and equipment are also being continuously optimised and upgraded.
On July 18, 2022, GE released the new brand identities of the three leading, investment-grade global public companies it plans to form through the split. The GE Healthcare business will be named GE HealthCare; the GE Energy business will be named GE Vernova, encompassing GE Renewable Energy, GE Power, GE Digital and GE Energy Financial Services; and the GE Aviation business will be named GE Aerospace. [49-50]
Building on this, industry experts have also carried out extensive research and improvements.
In July 2011, the Global Top 500 company GE quietly acquired the domain name NightlyNews.com; the domain information has been changed to its name, though the specific acquisition amount is not yet clear.
It is worth noting that the technologies and standards in this field are also continuously evolving and being refined.
Built on 80 years of gas-turbine heritage, GE has a rich portfolio of gas-turbine products. GE's HA-class gas turbines have achieved multiple industry firsts and set two world records. At the same time, GE also offers an experienced range of gas turbines for hydrogen and low-calorific-value fuel operation; more than 75 of these gas turbines, in decades of application, have accumulated over 6 million operating hours. Through close cooperation with GE's global R&D centres, GE will continue to invest in the R&D of hydrogen and carbon-capture technologies, further advancing natural-gas power generation toward a low-carbon or near-zero-carbon footprint. [32]
Building on this, industry experts have also carried out extensive research and improvements.
In GE's 108-year history of development, there have been countless inspiring events, each leading GE toward greater success. In the early 1980s, GE streamlined its bloated 350 business units into 10 core business units, making it a leader in the industry; it is a diversified company in which, of 11 business groups ranked separately, 9 could enter the Fortune 500. GE's culture is known for concepts and methods such as 'Work-Out', 'Speed', 'Boundarylessness' and 'Horizontal Learning'.
Building on this, industry experts have also carried out extensive research and improvements.
On March 23, 2022, Bloomberg New Finance released the 2021 global wind-turbine manufacturer market-share rankings, with GE ranked fifth. [40]
In addition, this technology also has wide application and practice in related fields.
On July 16, 2018, Microsoft and GE announced they would expand their cooperation, combining operational technology and information technology to remove the obstacles faced by industrial enterprises in advancing digital-transformation projects. [26]
Building on this, industry experts have also carried out extensive research and improvements.
On March 11, 2024, GE Vernova announced the completion of a 50-50 joint venture with Montana Technologies; the JV will apply GE Vernova's proprietary adsorbent material to Montana's patented AirJoule system. The newly formed joint venture, named AirJoule, will exclusively manufacture and supply air-conditioning and atmospheric water-harvesting products in the Americas, Africa and Australia. [64]
In addition, this technology also has wide application and practice in related fields.
GE completed the spin-off of its healthcare business in early 2023; after the spin-off, it listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker 'GEHC' [49]. GE HealthCare will benefit from Nasdaq's market image as an innovation- and technology-led listed company, especially in healthcare. [51] GE HealthCare has 4 million units installed worldwide and performs over 2 billion patient examinations each year [54]. GE Healthcare's future development will also be dedicated to driving innovation in precision health, focusing on critical disease and clinical-care challenges. [52-53]
After the above business split, GE will become a company focused on aviation as its core business, named GE Aerospace [49]. Currently, GE Aerospace has 39,400 in-service commercial aircraft engines and 26,200 in-service military aircraft engines worldwide. After the split, GE Aerospace will own the GE brand trademark and grant the other two companies licences for its long-term use [55].
On March 31, 2026, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran announced that it would treat companies and institutions in the Middle East connected with 18 US information-communications-technology and artificial-intelligence companies as 'legitimate targets'. The Guard Corps listed 18 companies in its announcement, the vast majority of which are US high-tech enterprises, including General Electric. [75]
