What happened to Philips?

[chriswood1900]

Once one of the worlds leading electronics business's they have virtually disappeared outside of the medical market. A leader in many innovations in Radio, TV and Electronics such as the compact cassette and CD. I came across this short 18min video on YouTube which summarises things quite well whilst not completely accurate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE58YisgFeQ

[greg_simons]

Yup, would agree with most of the content, from my perspective they wasted a lot of money on stuff that was too late into the market: v2000, or quickly superceded by different technology: digital compact cassette, i think that's why they're out of consumer electronics, got their fingers burnt too many times, i think their semiconductor business is doing fine under another badge, great shame, made a huge contribution to the electronics industry over the decades.
Greg.

[Radio Wrangler]

The Philips semiconductor side got floated off under the new name "NXP".

Doing quite well NXP bought the old Motorola RF power semiconductor business from Freescale.

The US government anti-trust lot now decided that there were too many eggs in one basket for the supply of devices for military/governmental applications and required NXP to get rid of some of their business.

Rather amusingly, it was the Philips side they chose to sell. So the Philips devices of yore andtheir factory are now under Chinese ownership and being sold as the 'Amplion' brand.

Meanwhile NXP are selling Motorola/Freescale parts from their newly acquired factory in Arizona.

You couldn't make it up!

They were all frequent visitors trying to persuade me to design-in their parts into the next generation of transponders and transceivers. Although a small company, we were selling into the very numerous small aircraft market with a significant proportion of the civil aircraft industry's turnover of RF power transistors. Little whizzers outnumber big airliners, and they all need transponders and radios built to certifiable standards.

David

[Junk Box Nick]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

So the Philips devices of yore andtheir factory are now under Chinese ownership and being sold as the 'Amplion' brand.
David

Perhaps they can supply me some diodes to replace the metal rectifiers in my Amplion Convette S142 (battery eliminator) power supply.

[McMurdo]

I suppose they're just chasing the money and offloading the low profit businesses. AFAIK Philips took over the Hewlett-Packard medical side of things didn't they? Philips license the name for lots of consumer stuff, without it seeing the inside of a Philips factory. I suppose my AA alkaline batteries are the same.

[Cathovisor]

Bits of NXP are now Nexperia and owned by the Chinese, which has caused noises here with their ownership of Inmos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexperia

BTW, it's Ampleon, not Amplion.

[Radio Wrangler]

Ah, Ampleon, thanks. I'd missed that differentiation.

David

[Roger Ramjet]

In the mid 60's I asked a local TV shop if they could supply me with a couple of OC71 transistors for an basic amplifier project in PW.

The owner [an ex WW2 Radar Engineer] was quite keen on my interest, asking me what they were for has he presented me with cardboard box nicely labeled as PHILLIPS, containing two OC71's.

Alas, they cost 6/- in old money which was way above my pocket money allowance so the amp was not built.

Very happy days..... Rog

[Sideband]

As an ex-employee of Philips (I was with them for 35 years), they are now only involved in medical equipment. I too am rather sad to think of all that expertise that has been lost. I still get news about them via the Pension Association but even that is likely to disappear in a few years since they no longer have funding from Philips. In fact the last reunion was really the last one. Croydon used to be the hub of Philips but there is nothing left now. If you walk around where the factory used to be there are few reminders that Philips ever existed except in road names.....Eindhoven Way, Philips Close.......

Same with the Mullard factory in Mitcham. New Road now leads to a housing estate.....

[duncanlowe]

Not sure they only do medical products. But I guess it depends what you define as medical. A friend of mine works for the consumer division that makes stuff like beard trimmers and electric toothbrushes.

[trh01uk]

I worked for Pye Telecom back in the 1970s. It was then owned by Philips. I left in 1982, but after that it got rebadged as "Simoco", and then died out completely in the mid-90s I believe. That "death" was due "private mobile radio" becoming obsolete due to the arrival of mobile phones.

Richard

[Sideband]

Originally Posted by duncanlowe

Not sure they only do medical products. But I guess it depends what you define as medical. A friend of mine works for the consumer division that makes stuff like beard trimmers and electric toothbrushes.

As far as I'm aware, all the Small Appliance and Personal Care division has been sold off although products are still made under licence using the Philips name. They are just made to Philips spec by a different company. As far as I know that also applies to TV's.

I must look back over old editions of the Pension News and see what's what!

[DrStrangelove]

Had an interview for a contract at Simoco back in 1997.

Drove across country for 5 hours and didn't even get offered a glass of water.

They wanted "commitment" from a contractor. As if. Glad I didn't get that one.

If streetview is correct there's nothing there now aside from a housing estate.

Spent 3 months in the early 2000s working for Philips at Southampton.

That site, which used to be the Mullard semicondutor factory seems to have been "repurposed" with bits of it selling cars & such like.

[cmjones01]

Oddly, I find myself designing Nexperia parts in to lots of things these days because it's actually possible to buy them from distributors, unlike some of their competitors I could mention. They seem to have navigated the chip shortage better than average. And I still think of them as Mullard...

Chris

[duncanlowe]

Originally Posted by Sideband

As far as I'm aware, all the Small Appliance and Personal Care division has been sold off although products are still made under licence using the Philips name. They are just made to Philips spec by a different company. As far as I know that also applies to TV's.

I must look back over old editions of the Pension News and see what's what!

All I can say is, She says she works for Philips in procurement. How that fits in with manufacture under a licensing agreement I couldn't say.

[factory]

For the Swedish test & measurement part of Philips, there is now Pendulum-instruments.
https://pendulum-instruments.com/about/

David

[robinshack]

Philips, Simoco and Mobicom. All intertwined at some time or other in their life in one way or another in the 90s, possibly later as well.
I once bought redundant equipment from Philips Telecom and after refurbishing it then sold it to Mobicom!
No wonder the state they got themselves into over the years.
Rob

[pmmunro]

My involvement with Philips was through working at PYE TVT between 1972 and 1976. I found it a bewildering mix of enthusiastic and capable individuals and incredible inefficiency. The old joke about the difference in the number of people employed and the number who worked there was only too true. I had previously been working in summer sandwich course jobs in Europe for two succesive years where the work ethic was on a much higher plane. The first company was very progressive and an example of their managements philosophy was in their staff restaurant (not a canteen). The directors had a table in the middle and anyone was free to meet them there. At Pye here were four eating areas, from works canteen to Board Room and in the time I was there I never saw a director.

Everything at PYE was a prototype, and although some items were well made and designed there was no concept of volume production so that it would be surprising if many were profitable. Development was minimally funded and this was reflected in many products. I made the mistake, by way of polite conversation, of asking a visiting German engineer what he thought of he thought of a new product about to be released. He looked surprised to be asked but answered "Quite frankly, it is rubbish". Sadly he was probably right.

The only reasoning I could come up with as to why Philips tolerated the inept PYE management was that they believed in giving them near complete autonomy. I was told, perhaps wrongly, that the Philips family were large majority shareholders so it seemed plausible that a very small return on investment still gave them a more than adequate income.

I was sorry for many ex-colleagues when I heard PYE TVT had closed but not at all surprised.

There is a lot to be admired about the Philips "Enterprise" and all the inovation for which they were responsible - as witnessed in the Philips Technical Review. In this respect they were possibly one of the most enterprising companies in the world of electronics. I could never reconcile this with the way PYE TVT was run.

PMM

[Roger Ramjet]

Originally Posted by Roger Ramjet

In the mid 60's I asked a local TV shop if they could supply me with a couple of OC71 transistors for an basic amplifier project in PW.

The owner [an ex WW2 Radar Engineer] was quite keen on my interest, asking me what they were for has he presented me with cardboard box nicely labeled as PHILLIPS, containing two OC71's.

Alas, they cost 6/- in old money which was way above my pocket money allowance so the amp was not built.

Very happy days..... Rog

On reflection, the nicely labeled box may have said MULLARD OC71's. Sorry for my misleading post.

Rog

[Maarten]

Without reading other reactions, so maybe it's already been said, basically Philips was driven into the ground by decades of bad management, basically by selling off everything that could feasibly be sold. Some spin-offs are succesfull, others went under (lack of synergy and a secure roof over their head being a notable pattern). The only reasons that they still exist and are somewhat well known is 1) there was just so much to be sold that they didn't even manage to sel the last bits by now 2) short term investers like this kind of management, and this management likes them.