Philips shrugs off ‘challenging year’ with UK profit spike
The UK arm of consumer electronics firm Philips shrugged off a “year of many challenges” to post a surge in profit for 2023.
The division, which is headquartered in Farnborough, has reported a pre-tax profit of £26m for the 12 months, up from the £5m it posted in 2022.
According to newly-filed accounts with Companies House, Philips’ turnover also increased from £354m to £371m over the same period.
Philips hails ‘good start’ to 2024
A statement signed off by the board said: “2023 was a year of many challenges, as well as considerable progress, with continued strong focus on patient safety and quality supply chain reliability and performance improvement.
“The current year performance represents a good start after the difficult prior year.
“The group continues to address these operational challenges, improve performance and drive progressive value creation through a strategy of focused growth, scalable patient and people-centric innovation and focus on reliable execution, prioritising patient safety and quality and support,y chain reliability.
“The group is supporting this with a reinvigorated culture of accountability, empowerment and strengthened health technology talent and capabilities whilst further progressing with the simplified operating model.”
‘There is more work to be done’
For 2023, the wider Philips group reported sales of €18.2bn, a rise of seven per cent.
Speaking in January, chief executive Roy Jakobs said: “Our strong results in 2023 were driven by solid execution of the first year of our three-year plan to create value with sustainable impact.
“While there is more work to be done, the progress we achieved in a volatile world lays a solid foundation for sustained performance.
“Patient safety and quality remain Philips’ highest priority across the company.
“Resolving the consequences of the Respironics recall for our patients and customers is a key focus area and I acknowledge and apologise for the distress and concern caused.
“We are fully committed to complying with the consent decree, which is an important step and provides a clear path forward.
“We saw strong growth throughout the year based on the actions we have taken to improve supply chain reliability and simplify our organisation.
“Our order book is strong, and we are focused on improving order intake.
“Our new operating model enabled more effective ways of working across the company, and drove significant productivity improvements.
“We continue to partner with many healthcare systems around the world, supporting them to become more efficient, and addressing their resourcing and productivity challenges with our AI-powered innovations.
“This includes our newly launched next-generation ultrasound systems, and our unique mobile MRI system with helium-free operations.
“We are confident in our plan to help consumers lead healthy lives and healthcare providers deliver efficient, high-quality care to patients in a sustainable way.
“Based on our ongoing actions to enhance execution, we expect further performance improvement in 2024.”