Royal Philips, Amsterdam, Netherlands, which since its acquisition of Lumileds in 2005 has been pushing solid-state lighting research and product development about as hard as anyone, is moving to restructure its lighting business for faster growth.
By combining the Lumileds business with its automotive lighting business, Philips hopes to explore strategic options to attract capital from third-party investors. Philips intends to remain a shareholder and customer of the new company, and will continue its existing collaboration on innovative technologies. Meanwhile the company will focus on networked LED lighting systems and services.
“Philips’ strategy in Lighting is to intensify its focus on connected LED lighting systems and services, LED luminaires, and LED lamps for the professional and consumer markets,” Frans van Houten, CEO of Royal Philips, said. “Both our Lumileds and Automotive lighting businesses are strong players in the lighting industry and ready to pursue more growth and scale, independently of Philips Lighting. As a world-leading lighting components business, they will have increased flexibility to attract additional investors to accelerate growth.”
More details to come.
Philips’ release: “Philips to set up stand-alone company consisting of its Lumileds and Automotive lighting businesses to accelerate growth and scale”