General Electric Co. was once so sprawling that its business ranged from insurance to plastics and even media in the form of NBC Universal. Those days of diversification are now long gone.

GE reported 13 individual operating segments in 2003, many of which have since been consolidated, wound down or sold off. The company now has three primary businesses: aviation, healthcare and power. On Tuesday, it said it would separate them into three public companies.

In...

General Electric Co. was once so sprawling that its business ranged from insurance to plastics and even media in the form of NBC Universal. Those days of diversification are now long gone.

GE reported 13 individual operating segments in 2003, many of which have since been consolidated, wound down or sold off. The company now has three primary businesses: aviation, healthcare and power. On Tuesday, it said it would separate them into three public companies.

In the first three quarters of 2021, healthcare and aviation made up just over half of total revenue. Those business units, categorized as “Infrastructure and Technology” in the following visualization, weren’t always the lion’s share of the conglomerate: When they were first reported as individual segments in 2011, they made up only a quarter. The changing, merging and splitting of segments—represented in the timeline below as single lines—reveals how the company’s focus has shifted over time.