GE had no immediate comment on the report, said its spokesman Jeff DeMarrais.

The company has hired Goldman Sachs to advise on a possible sale, the Journal added. Meanwhile Goldman officials declined comment.

While GE’s appliance unit, which makes refrigerators, stoves and other so-called “white goods,” is one of its most visible to consumers, the business made up about 4 per cent of the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company’s $173 billion in revenue last year.

GE Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt, who took over from Jack Welch in 2001 , has been paring consumer businesses to cope with a slower US economy.

Sensitive sectors
 The units he’s selling don't expand fast enough to help GE reach its goal of 10 percent annual profit growth. Appliances, which like light bulbs are the GE products most familiar to consumers, were just 4.1 per cent of 2007 sales.  Since unveiling his basic plan to shift out of economically sensitive sectors in December 2002, Mr Immelt has divested more than $75 billion in GE businesses, including the plastics and insurance units, while making more than $50 billion in purchases in faster-growing areas such as water treatment and aviation. Investors and analysts have been asking ever since whether he planned to shed appliances and the light-bulb unit.

In December 2007, Immelt put the US private-label credit card division on the block and is also selling the consumer finance unit in Japan, called Lake.  But the pressure has ramped up since the company stunned Wall Street last month with an unexpected drop in quarterly profit.