William H. Cary Vice President Corporate Investor Communications

General Electric Company 3135 Easton Turnpike Fairfield, CT 06828 USA

T 203-373-2468 F 203-373-2071 [email protected]

August 1, 2005

To the Investment Community:

GE Reports Record Second Quarter Earnings

We delivered an excellent second-quarter performance. GE achieved record second-quarter earnings of $4.6 billion, up 24% on 13% revenue growth. Our outlook continues to be very strong for revenue, earnings, and cash flow growth and we have great momentum for the second half of 2005. Other earnings highlights follow:

· Earnings per share (EPS) of $.44, up 22% · Operating profit margin of 15.1%, up 1.6 points · All 11 GE businesses deliver at least double-digit earnings growth · First-half CFOA up 18%, industrial CFOA up 24% · Full-year 2005 EPS target increased to $1.80-$1.83

You may download or request reprints of our 2Q05 highlights brochure on our web site at www.ge.com/investor.

We’re glad that many of you were able to join us for the GE Consumer Finance analyst meeting earlier this week, where we reviewed the Consumer Finance growth story, including 2005E asset growth, up ~15%, and strong organic growth, up 12-14%. We also reaffirmed that the outlook for GE Capital is on track, with strong asset growth at Consumer and Commercial Finance, and continued execution on the insurance strategy. You may review the webcast archive on our web site at http://www.ge.com/en/company/investor/webcast/webcast_07262005.htm

News Headlines

Growth Platforms − GE Commercial Finance has agreed to acquire approximately $1 billion in aircraft assets from CIT Group. The acquisition expands GE's corporate aircraft market reach, diversifies its customer base, and creates additional cross-selling opportunities. The acquisition includes the leases and loans on approximately 380 aircraft from CIT's corporate aircraft portfolio. − GE Commercial Finance, along with Caisse de depot, will purchase the Southern Star gas pipeline system from AIG Highstar Capital. The purchase price is $362 million, plus the assumption of $476 million in debt and preferred stock. − GE Infrastructure (Aircraft Engines) will acquire Everest VIT, Inc. (EVIT), a remote industrial visual inspection technologies subsidiary. EVIT will become part of GE Inspection Technologies, headquartered in Huerth, Germany. − GE Infrastructure (GE Energy's nuclear business) signed a strategic alliance agreement with FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) of Akron, Ohio. The six-year alliance will cover operational support at FirstEnergy's Perry Nuclear Power Plant and Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station. The goal of the alliance is to maximize equipment and refuel outage performance at the two facilities, which are located in Ohio, along the northern shores of Lake Erie. − GE Commercial Finance, Global Electronics Solutions, and Applied Materials, Inc. formed an alliance to offer a suite of service and financing solutions to customers using semiconductor and flat panel display equipment.

Services − GE Infrastructure (GE Energy) has signed a $400 million, 17-year contractual service agreement (CSA) covering 27 gas turbines and 47 centrifugal compressors at Atlantic LNG Company's production facility in Port Fortin, Trinidad. This contract includes a new maintenance approach based on an evolution of the modular exchange normally applied on GE aeroderivative engines and now extended to GE heavy-duty 32-megawatt gas turbines.

Technical Leadership − GE Healthcare and Intermountain Health Care launched the first joint project to reduce medical errors. They will establish a research center in Utah to create electronic patient records accessible to patients' entire ''care team'' − GE Infrastructure (Water) and Gen-Probe have announced a far-reaching collaboration to transform the industrial water treatment market through innovative nucleic acid testing (NAT) technologies. The partnership focuses on developing more rapid and accurate ways to detect infectious microorganisms, which are too small to be seen without a microscope, but can cause serious illness and disease in humans and animals when consumed through contaminated food and water sources. − NASA flight surgeons will use GE Healthcare's advanced heart monitoring and digital networking systems to monitor astronauts' health information real-time during space walks, which will take place throughout the current Space Shuttle Discovery mission. − GE Healthcare and Roche announced collaboration aimed at developing personalized care for patients with Alzheimer's disease. In controlled clinical trials, patients taking a Roche anti-amyloid drug candidate for Alzheimer's disease will be monitored clinically for drug response using GE's positron emission tomography (PET) diagnostic imaging agent.

Globalization − GE outlined Europe-specific aspects of the company's innovative ecomagination initiative, designed to bring to market new technologies that will help customers meet increasing global environmental challenges and stimulate GE's continued growth. "Ecomagination is a global GE growth strategy where advanced technologies help us answer modern challenges, support our customers, and increasingly enhance our bottom line," Immelt said. Immelt noted a number of ecomagination technologies already in use in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, or coming online soon, including: The GEnx engine - which will power the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 - and which is 15% more energy efficient, significantly more quiet, and has lower emissions than predecessors The offshore wind turbine farm at Arklow, Ireland, which will harness enough wind to power 16,000 Irish homes a year The H System gas turbine - which can cut emissions and improve efficiency of the power generating installed base by 10 percent - operating at Wales's Baglan Bay The largest seawater desalination plant in Africa - which will provide drinking water to 25% of people in Algiers, Algeria. − GE Industrial (Lighting) will open its first quartz facility in Wuxi New Zone, located in East China's Jiangsu Province. The new facility represents an investment of more than $23 million. It joins two existing GE plants in Wuxi and will serve the lighting industry in China, and around the world, with furnace and finishing operations for high- purity, small-diameter quartz tubing.

Commercial Excellence − GE Industrial (Quartz) will now offer custom wafer heater assemblies for semiconductor equipment manufacturers to help optimize the performance of heaters and electrostatic chucks in chip-making equipment. GE Quartz will produce these at an integrated heater assembly platform based at the company's new laboratory in Kobe, Japan.

Upcoming Calendar August 4: Jim Campbell, President & CEO, GE Consumer & Industrial-Americas, at CSFB Conference (presentation available on web site) September 13: Ric Artigas, President, GE Energy Services, at Morgan Stanley Industrials Conference (audiocast + presentation available on web site) *September 20: Joe Hogan, President & CEO, GE Healthcare, at Banc of America Conference (webcast) September 23: John Rice, President & CEO, GE Industrial, and Mark Vachon, CFO, GE Healthcare, at Prudential Conference (presentations available on web site) *October 6, 8:30 –11:30 am: GE Commercial Finance analyst meeting (NYC) *October 14, 8:30 am ET: GE 3Q05 earnings call

*Meetings will be webcast. We retain our webcast replays on our web site for 14 days.

NBCU Film Release Schedule August 12: The Skeleton Key (K. Hudson, G. Rowlands, P. Sarsgaard) August 19: The 40-Year-Old Virgin (S. Carrell, P. Rudd, C. Keener) September 23: Pride & Prejudice (K. Knightly, D. Sutherland) September 30: Serenity (N. Fillion, G. Torres)

Please view our calendar of events on www.ge.com/investor for more information.

Regards,