Its shares rose 4.6 percent in premarket trading. The 19-percent drop in profit marked GE's eighth straight quarter of profit decline, though Chief Executive Jeff Immelt said the company is on track for flat earnings this year. Fourth-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders fell to $2.94 billion, or 28 cents per share, from $3.65 billion, or 35 cents per share, a year earlier.
Analysts on average expected profit of 26 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Revenue fell 10 percent to $41.44 billion. Wall Street had looked for revenue of $40.02 billion.
Immelt called the company's 2010 financial "framework," which calls for earnings to be about equal to 2009 results, "quite achievable." The company posted a 2009 profit of $1.03 from continuing operations. Analysts forecast 2010 profit of 94 cents per share on sales of $152.77 billion.
The world's biggest maker of jet engines and electricity-producing turbines has been hit hard by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and is working to scale back its hefty GE Capital finance arm, which has invested heavily in commercial real estate.
Profit fell 67 percent at GE Capital, though Immelt noted that every segment of that business except for its commercial real estate arm made money. The company expects to end the year with about $25 billion in cash, which it will consider applying to share buybacks or to raising its dividend. GE last year cut its dividend by 68 percent. Its shares were up 73 cents at $16.75 in premarket trading. GE shares have risen 28 percent over the past year, trailing the 33 percent rise of the Dow Jones industrial average.