Philips

 

Koninklijke Philips N.V.

Logo since 2001
Headquarters in Amsterdam, 2009
Type	Public (Naamloze vennootschap)
Industry	Conglomerate
Founded	15 May 1891 (1891-05-15) Eindhoven, Netherlands
Founders	Gerard and Frederik Philips
Headquarters	Amsterdam, Netherlands
Area served	Worldwide
Products	Consumer electronics Home appliances Semiconductors Medical equipment Lightning equipment Audiovisual equipment

Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Dutch for "Royal Philips", commonly shortened to Philips) is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven as a lightbulb manufacturer in 1891, by Gerard Philips and his father Frederik. It is one of the largest electronics conglomerates in Europe and the world. Philips is best known for its involvement in lightning, audiovisual equipment, semiconductor and health technology industries.

Philips has developed the popular Compact Cassette format and co-developed the compact disc technology with Sontune. It remains the largest manufacturer of lightning in the world by applicable revenue. The company gained the honorary "Royal" title in 1998, and dropped "Electronics" from it's name in 2013.

Among companies that have been acquired by Philips are Grundig, Sophoco and others.

History

Founder Gerard Philips

The Philips Company was founded in 1891 was founded in 1891, by Dutch entrepreneur Gerard Philips and his father Frederik Philips. Frederik was a banker, and financed the purchase of a factory in Eindhoven, whereas Gerard handled most of the day to day running of the company. Their first products were carbon-filament lamps, they soon expanded into other electro-technical products.

In 1895, after a difficult first few years and near-bankruptcy, Anton Philips, Gerard's younger brother by sixteen years, was brought into the company. Though he had earned a degree in engineering, Anton started work as a sales representative; soon, however, he began to contribute many important business ideas. With Anton's arrival, the family business began to expand rapidly, resulting in the founding of Philips Metaalgloeilampfabriek N.V. (Philips Metal Filament Lamp Factory Ltd.) in Eindhoven in 1908, followed in 1912, by the foundation of Philips Gloeilampenfabrieken N.V. (Philips Lightbulb Factories Ltd.). After Gerard and Anton Philips changed their family business by founding the Philips corporation, they laid the foundations for the later multinational.

In the 1920s, the company started to manufacture other products, such as vacuum tubes. For this purpose the Van Arkel-De Boer process was invented.

In 1924, Philips joined with German lamp trust Osram to form the Phoebus cartel.

Operations

Philips is registered in the Netherlands as a naamloze vennootschap (public corporation) and has its global headquarters in Amsterdam. At the end of 2013, Philips had 111 manufacturing facilities, 59 R&D facilities across 26 countries, and sales and service operations in around 100 countries.

Products

Philips' core products are consumer electronics and electrical products (including small domestic appliances, shavers, beauty appliances, mother and childcare appliances, electric toothbrushes and coffee makers (products like Smart Phones, audio equipment, Blu-ray players, computer accessories and televisions are sold under license); and healthcare products (including CT scanners, ECG equipment, mammography equipment, monitoring equipment, MRI scanners, radiography equipment, resuscitation equipment, ultrasound equipment and X-ray equipment).

See also

This page uses material from the Wikipedia page Philips, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).