General Electric Company (GE Aerospace)

General Electric Company, operating as GE Aerospace, is the world's largest commercial aircraft propulsion company by installed fleet, with approximately 50,000 commercial and 30,000 military engines in service and roughly 70% of its $45.9 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue coming from aftermarket services. The company designs, manufactures, and services jet engines across the full spectrum of commercial and defense aviation — from the CFM International LEAP narrowbody engine (a 50-50 joint venture with Safran) powering the Boeing 737 MAX and Airbus A320neo families, to the GE9X, the largest and most powerful commercial aircraft engine ever built, which will power the Boeing 777X.

This is a story about a 133-year-old industrial icon that, after decades of conglomerate sprawl, a near-death experience in the 2008 financial crisis, and the 2024 spin-offs of its healthcare and energy businesses, has emerged as a pure-play aerospace franchise with the industry's largest and still-growing installed base. The company's economic model is built on what Larry Culp, chairman and CEO since 2018, calls an "installed-base razor-and-blade" — sell the engine at thin or negative margins, then earn decades of high-margin aftermarket revenue from maintenance, repair, overhaul (MRO), and spare parts.

The file turns on a single question: whether the aftermarket flywheel — already generating ~$30 billion annually in services revenue and growing — can keep compounding faster than the margin drag from ramping new engine platforms and the inherent cyclicality of commercial aviation can erode it.