GE profit down 44 per cent

General Electric Co reported a 44 per cent drop in quarterly profit, meeting Wall Street's expectations, as the US conglomerate and economic bellwether closed out one of the toughest years in its 117-year history. Earnings tumbled 67 per cent at GE Capital finance and 86 per cent at its lighting and appliance unit, and were also down 6 per cent at NBC Universal media. Profit was up at its two infrastructure units, which make electricity-producing turbines and engines.

The world's largest maker of jet engines and electric turbines said on Friday profit came to $3.72 billion, or 35 cents per diluted share, compared with $6.7 billion, or 66 cents per diluted share, a year earlier. Factoring out one-time items, results met Wall Street's expectations, according to Reuters Estimates.

Revenue fell 4.8 per cent.Jeong, an analyst at Hana Daetoo Securities. Peter Yu, analyst at BNP Paribas in Seoul, predicted the current first quarter would be even worse. “Across the board, every major business is going to show quarter-on-quarter deterioration. At the moment, the visibility of a turnaround is very low,” he said. Samsung posted an October-December operating loss of 937 billion won ($682 million), showing the impact of ravaged chip and LCD prices.

The figure compares to a year-earlier profit of 1.78 trillion won and was much steeper than analysts' forecast for a 452 billion won shortfall. Samsung's chip unit, which just two years ago posted an operating profit margin of 31 per cent, reported a loss margin of 14 per cent, a much larger deficit than expected. The loss contributed to almost 60 per cent of the total operating loss. Samsung also said the oversupply situation in the memory market would continue through the first half of 2009.

The loss contributed to almost 60 per cent of the total operating loss. Samsung also said the oversupply situation in the memory market would continue through the first half of 2009.