Philips pushes restructuring plan forward amid losses

Philips, the Dutch consumer electronics company, has posted a first quarter loss of 57m euros (£51m), and now plans to fast track a major restructuring plan.

The economic downturn led to a sales fall of 17% to 5.1bn euros (£4.56bn). The company is planning to achieve savings by over 500m euros (£447m) by the year’s end. The latest result is in stark contrast to the 294m Euros profit it made in the first quarter of last year.

In spite of the loss, Philips says it does not plan to announce any further job cuts in addition to the 6,000 it is already planning to shed.

Philips is Europe’s biggest consumer electronics maker and the world’s biggest lighting maker.

Chief executive Gerard Kleisterlee says: “We remain convinced that Philips will come out of this recession as a stronger company.

“The portfolio of leading businesses we have built up is clearly not immune to the market woes we are now experiencing, but it is certainly more resilient than the portfolio we operated in the previous downturn.”

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