GE Aerospace
Aviation engine maker with 70,000 installed engines generating 70% of revenue from aftermarket service lock-in.
GE Aerospace generated $38.7 billion in 2024 revenue, but 70% came not from selling engines, but from servicing the 70,000 commercial and defense engines already bolted to aircraft worldwide. This installed base isn't a customer list—it's a host population locked into a decades-long symbiotic relationship.
When an airline buys a GE LEAP engine for a Boeing 737 MAX or Airbus A320neo, it's not a transaction, it's an adoption. That engine requires GE-certified parts, GE-trained technicians, and GE maintenance intervals for 20-30 years. The company delivered record LEAP units in 2024 (up 40% year-over-year), each one a new host organism entering the service ecosystem. Commercial Engines & Services revenue grew 17% in 2024, and operating profit jumped 33% in Q4 to $2.3 billion.
The biological model is mutualism with high switching costs. Airlines can't casually replace engines—they'd forfeit pilot training, maintenance infrastructure, and parts inventory. GE benefits from predictable service revenue streams that grow with flight hours. Both parties are locked in, but the lock-in isn't parasitic—properly maintained engines reduce fuel costs and improve reliability.
What makes this remarkable is the temporal scale. When GE books an engine sale, it's capturing a service annuity that extends decades into the future. The $119 billion backlog at competitor GE Vernova is matched by an even larger invisible backlog: the future maintenance hours embedded in every installed engine. Free cash flow hit record levels in 2024, up $1.3 billion, because service contracts generate cash without the capital intensity of manufacturing.
The company raised 2028 operating profit guidance to $11.5 billion (up from $10 billion prior), driven not by selling more engines, but by the compounding effects of a growing installed base. Each new engine is a seed that will generate service revenue for decades. Each retired engine is a host lost from the population. The business model is less manufacturing, more long-term mutualism at global scale.