Philips, the Dutch electronics group, will slice 4500 jobs as third quarter earnings fell and the result for its product persists to be vague. It announced that the fall is because of lower margins, falling sales and a loss at its TV division. Its group-wide net profit for the three months to 30 September was 74m euros ($103m; £65m), compared with 524m euros a year back. In past seven months Philips has been issued two profit warnings.
The slim down comes in the middle of slumped consumer confidence in Europe and the US which are two of Philips hub markets. Its share price has also plunged 40% over the last year as the company fights with lower-cost Asian rivals. Philips quarterly revenues were declined by 1.3%.
Philips employs 116,000 people across the world, including 2,200 in the UK. "We do not expect to realize a material performance improvement in the near term," said Philips chief executive Frans van Houten. Philips UK offices hail in Guildford, Surrey; Hamilton, South Lanarkshire; and Chichester, West Sussex. Of 4500 job layoffs 1400 would account to Netherlands. Whereas the balance has yet to be announced. Mr van Houten said the job cuts were "a regrettable but inevitable step to improve our operating model to become more agile, lean and competitive".
Further Philips added that the discussions with Hong Kong based TPV technology over the sale of a 70% majority stake in its television business was taking too long.
