GE to Sell Consumer Division

General Electric Co. said today that it will drop out of the consumer electronics business, in which it does more than $3 billion a year in sales, by selling its division to France’s Thomson S.A.

In return, GE will receive Thomson’s medical equipment business and an undisclosed amount of cash. GE’s consumer electronics business employs 31,000 employees worldwide, 10,000 of them in the United States, and 17 manufacturing sites worldwide, six of them in the United States. The business includes television sets, videocassette recorders and audio products. Thomson will continue to market the products under the GE and RCA labels.