General Electric Co. said on Thursday that its profit in the first quarter increased by 9 percent as the industrial products, financial services and media conglomerate reported strong orders across the company.

GE said that its net earnings for the first three months of this year totaled 4.3 billion dollars, compared with 3.96 billion dollars in the same period of last year.

Total revenue of the company also climbed by 10 percent to 37.8 billion dollars in the first quarter from 34.4 billion dollars a year ago.

"We had a strong performance in the quarter highlighted by double-digit growth in earnings, revenues and cash flow," said GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt in a statement.

The revenue of General Electric Co. increased by 3.1 percent to 157 billion dollars in 2005 and was the No. 7 in the 500 largest U. S. corporations listed by the Fortune earlier this month.

Source: Xinhua