[hip]

Honda Motor Co. and General Electric are teaming up to develop and produce market a new jet engine for small business jets. Honda already is the largest maker of internal combustion engines in the world, making engines for a variety of cars, motorcycles, recreational vehicles and power tools like lawn mowers and saws. GE, meanwhile, has long been a major supplier of jet aircraft engines for both military and commercial aircraft. The Japanese auto and motorcycle maker has long wanted to break into the aircraft business and just before Christmas showed off a new lightweight, turbofan aircraft engine developed by its engineers. But Honda officials stressed the company had no immediate plans to sell the engine to aircraft makers. Takeo Fukui, Honda's president, however, said the deal with GE opened up new opportunities for Honda and moved forward the day for commercializing the aircraft engines the automaker had developed. Demand for the engine also is expected to grow over the next decade, Fukui said. -Joe Szczesny

http://www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp?n=173&sid=173&article=6864

 

[larchmont]

I wonder if this might elevate Honda's image and status as a company. Most of us here love Honda, but as a corporation, it's regarded as a very weak sister to Toyota, as just about everything else is too. One common measure is total value of the company's stock -- which in the corporate world is regarded as the company's value, period, and therefore the company's esteem -- and Toyota is by far the biggest car company, being more than twice as valuable as any other. (I think Honda might be second; it's at least close to #2.) [This is an edit. Originally I said Toyota was about 5x as valuable, but that was wrong.]

GE is one of the very most valuable corporations in the world; it might be #1. I know it used to be, until its stock tanked in the last few years, but it has recovered a bit, and it's either #1 again or very close. When companies like that team up with a company in another industry, they usually look to do it with the biggest player. When the specifics of the situation don't allow that (like in this case), it often tends to elevate the esteem of the "little" partner within the business community.

We might have preferred Honda to put its energies into developing even greater engines for CARS.
But this can only be good news for Honda.

 

[kiteboy]

Here's some food for thought:

http://bwnt.businessweek.com/brand/2003/index.asp

Toyota is #11, Honda #18, GE #4.

Image is more than brand value; GE with decades of jet engine experience lends a lot of credibility to Honda by partnering with them.

 

[larchmont]

Here's some food for thought:

http://bwnt.businessweek.com/brand/2003/index.asp

Toyota is #11, Honda #18, GE #4.

Image is more than brand value; GE with decades of jet engine experience lends a lot of credibility to Honda by partnering with them.

Very interesting chart. I have seen those lists, but not since becoming so interested in car companies so I never paid attention to where they stand.

BTW I would have given a similar chart of companies ranked by company value, but I don't know where to look. I think GE and Microsoft might be 1 and 2, in that order. Toyota isn't really close to them but it's in the same order of magnitude. Other car companies are much lower.

 

[kiteboy]

Depends on which metric you use. Most lists use revenue, but market cap is common too. Here's a good site that lets you sort by different metrics.

http://www.forbes.com/2003/03/26/500sland.html

Forbes has a composite "super rank" and GE is #1 on that list.

btw, I just Googled "biggest companies" to find these links. It's cool how answers sometimes come from the most obvious questions.:woot:

 

[larchmont]

Thanks yet again, Kite! That's exactly what I would've wanted to find.

Yeah, the lists can be done according to various criteria. "Market cap" (i.e. total stock value) is usually regarded as the main indicator of value. Anyway Kite's link lets us see the list according to just about whatever we want.

It turns out I was way off about Toyota. Since I didn't see Toyota on that Forbes list, I went and checked for its exact market cap, and it's exactly HALF of what I thought -- 115 billion, not 230 as I had thought. Don't know where I got the 230 -- I recently calculated it and obviously made some mistake.

It's still way higher than other car companies -- more than double any other (Honda is 41 billion, DaimlerChrysler is 47, GM and Ford are 27 each). But it's not knocking on the door of being the most valuable company in the world, which I thought it was.