NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - General Electric Co. reported improved fourth-quarter earnings Friday that beat Wall Street forecasts as the company said it looked for strong earnings growth to continue.

The diversified conglomerate, whose many businesses include light bulbs, jet engines, commercial finance, television and movies, earned $5.4 billion, or 51 cents a share, in the quarter. That's one cent better than the consensus forecast of analysts surveyed by earnings tracker First Call, and up from $4.6 billion, or 45 cents, a year earlier.

Shares of GE (Research) were up 37 cents, or 1 percent, to $35.74 in pre-market trading on Inet just before the market open, though they slipped from the pre-market highs after the company started giving more details on future earnings guidance that was roughly in line with analysts' forecasts.

Revenue rose 18 percent to $43.7 billion, which also topped First Call's forecast of $42.1 billion.

The EPS result is at the top end of GE's earlier guidance of 48 to 51 cents.

GE, the nation's largest company in terms of market capitalization, normally meets rather than beats analysts' forecast. It has had only one upside earnings surprise during the previous eight quarters, the second quarter of 2004. That time it also beat estimates by 1 cent a share, which led to a 2 percent gain for its stock that day.

The company said it is confident EPS growth would remain in double digits going forward.

"We're going into 2005 with excellent momentum," said a statement from Chairman and CEO Jeffery Immelt. "We are very confident about achieving 10-15 percent earnings growth with strong cash flow growth and sustaining this growth into 2006 as well."

The company issued first-quarter EPS guidance of 36 to 37 cents, on revenue between $37 billion to $38 billion. First Call's forecast stood at earnings of 37 cents a share on revenue of $38.1 billion before the guidance. Analysts' EPS estimates ranged from 36 to 38 cents.

The company's longer-term outlook is also roughly in line with analysts' forecasts. It sees second-quarter EPS of 42 to 44 cents; First Call's forecast is 43 cents. In the second half, it expects EPS of 98 cents to $1.02; First Call forecasts 45 cents EPS in the third quarter and 55 cents in the fourth quarter, equaling $1 for the six-month period.

The company's improvement was broad based, with six of its 11 units posting revenue gain of at least 12 percent, and all but insurance and energy posting double-digit percentage profit gains as well. Insurance was the only unit to see a loss as it increased its loss reserves for policies written in prior years.

The company's largest unit, consumer finance, saw both revenue and earnings rise 12 percent.

NBC Universal, the unit that includes its television networks and movie studios, saw the best profit gain, a 60 percent rise over the year before. The company acquired Universal studios from Vivendi in May 2004.