Philips aims to cash in on massive urbanisation in region

“Many countries in Asia Pacific will enter ageing society as 60 per cent of total population will be over 65 years of age by 2050 while urban areas in key cities will keep expanding. People will demand affordable healthcare service,” Harjit Gill, Philips’ chief executive officer for Asean and Pacific, said last week.
Gill revealed these mega-trends affecting health and well-being in the region at the annual Philips Asia Media Summit under “Innovating for a Healthier and More Sustainable Asia” theme in Singapore last week.
Apart from the ageing population in the future, there is also a middle-class boom in this region, she added. They also need affordable medical care hence the governments and private sector in each country are investing heavily to upgrade the healthcare system, including clinical equipments for hospitals, cutting-edge healthcare technology and solutions as well as training for clinicians.
Philips’ CEO said the company had formed partnerships with key government and private entities to improve healthcare systems in the region.
Sharad Jhingan, product manager for patient monitoring and cardiac care at Philips Healthcare, said the company had witnessed an increasing number of new hospitals and excellent centres at medical universities.
Jhingan cited Thailand as an example that is anticipating demand for healthcare accessibility mainly driven by those factors in line with medical tourism promotion. Philips Healthcare’s clients in Thailand are King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital at Chulalongkorn University and Samitivej hospital.
Last year, Philips generated about 22.6 billion euros (Bt901 billion) in sales across the globe. Of that, the healthcare segment accounted for 41 per cent of total sales, followed by 34 per cent from the lighting business and the remainder from consumer electronics products, Wayne Spittle, senior vice president and commercial leader, added.
Additionally, 65 per cent of total sales revenue was from the business-to-business segment while the rest was from selling to consumers.
Bjorn Sprengers, senior marketing director for consumer lifestyle electronics products, said that despite the slowdown in the European economy, the company enjoyed about 9 per cent year-on-year increase in global sales of consumer electronics products in the second quarter of this year while the regional market saw double-digit growth.
The company hopes to follow this trend until the end of this year.
In the lighting business, Philips believes that the expansion of urban areas as well as infrastructure in key cities is the main factor creating business opportunities.
Currently more than half of the world’s population lives in cities and urban areas. It is predicted that this proportion could rise to almost 70 per cent by 2050. This is putting demands on the infrastructure systems, environment and energy consumption.
Laura Ashton, head of marketing and vice president for lighting in Asia Pacific and Latin America, said the company was working with governments, public and business partners to encourage a shift to more energy-efficient lighting solutions in replacing of the old-fashioned light balls.
For instance, last week, the company sealed an open-ended agreement with the global financial and real estate management firm Jones Lang LaSalle to offer energy savings of up to US$100 million (Bt3 billion) a year to more than 150 Jones Lang LaSalle clients, calculating more than 70 million light points, in Asia Pacific.