Statements from Frans van Houten, CEO:
“We are encouraged by the continuing improvement in our operational results in the second quarter of 2015, driven by strong comparable sales growth in Healthcare and strong margin improvements in Consumer Lifestyle and Lighting. While we are pleased with our progress overall and our Healthcare performance in the US in particular, we are increasingly concerned about the global macro-economic environment, particularly in China, Russia and Latin America.
“In Healthcare, we achieved significant operational margin improvements in the quarter. This was largely offset by a sizable negative foreign exchange impact on the margin, further investment in growth opportunities, and costs related to considerable continued efforts to improve our quality management systems. We also note that the Chinese market is becoming more difficult, which resulted in a drop in orders. We are pleased with the production and shipment ramp-up at our Cleveland manufacturing facility, although more work remains to be done.
“In Consumer Lifestyle, we delivered further operational results improvements, driven by excellent performance in Health & Wellness. As previously indicated, phasing of new product introductions drove exceptionally strong growth in the first quarter, leading to the lower growth rate in the second quarter. In aggregate, comparable sales growth in the first half of 2015 was well within the range of mid to high single-digit growth.
“In Lighting, we continued to drive strong sales growth and improve profitability levels in our LED business. Simultaneously, we sustained our conventional lighting business’ attractive cash and profitability profile by pro-actively optimizing our manufacturing footprint and tight cost control, despite significant market decline. As the world leader in lighting, we are confident in our ability to lead the transformation in this industry.
“Looking ahead, we continue to expect modest sales growth for 2015, as well as improved operational performance for the year. While we are concerned about the impact the more challenging global macro-economic environment is having on results, we expect continued operational performance improvement in 2016, reinforcing the underlying strength of our businesses. We intend to provide more details about the performance trajectory for HealthTech and Lighting Solutions at our Capital Markets Day on September 15.”
Accelerate! and Separation Update
“Our Accelerate! program continues to drive improvements across the organization. In Healthcare, we optimized the end-to-end processes at one of our Volcano manufacturing facilities by running continuous-improvement Kaizen events that led to a more than 80% reduction in lead time and a 50% reduction in work-in-progress inventory for the improved lines. In Consumer Lifestyle, through our customer-centric innovation approach, we successfully launched a high-performance range of rice cookers in China with 30% faster time-to-market. This locally relevant value proposition drove strong customer preference, resulting in a 4-point market share increase since the launch. In Lighting, we reduced supply chain complexity and optimized the processes in the UK, which led to a 60% reduction in lead times for product configuration and delivery. This also drove a 50% increase in the total value of opportunities in the sales funnel and high-single-digit growth in orders volume.”
Overhead cost savings amounted to EUR 60 million in the second quarter. The Design for Excellence (DfX) program generated EUR 84 million of incremental savings in procurement in the quarter. Our End2End productivity program achieved EUR 36 million in productivity improvements.
Philips expects to finalize the transition of the Lighting business into its own legal structure within the Philips Group by February 2016 in order to complete the separation in the first half of 2016. Philips had previously estimated that the separation costs would amount to EUR 300-400 million in 2015. Now that the Company is halfway through the separation process, it anticipates lower separation costs of EUR 200-300 million in 2015 and estimates that separation costs, including related restructuring, will amount to EUR 200-300 million in 2016. As previously stated, Philips is reviewing all strategic options for the Lighting business, including an initial public offering and a private sale.
As additional time is required for regulatory approvals, Philips is now working towards closing the sale of a majority interest in the combined LED components and Automotive lighting business to a consortium led by GO Scale Capital in the fourth quarter of 2015.
As of June 30, 2015, Philips had completed 59% of the EUR 1.5 billion share buy-back program.
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