Axe to fall on 2,200 more Philips jobs Dutch electronics company Philips is to cut 2,200 jobs to save €300m in annual costs and make the company more competitive. The job cuts come on top of 4,500 already announced as part of earlier cost-cutting measures and raise the total to be saved annually to €1.1bn by 2014. Frans Houten, chief executive, announced the new cuts in a call with analysts Tuesday morning, calling them "regrettable." He said the cuts at Philips, Europe's largest electronics company and the world's top lighting manufacturer, would not affect its 2013 guidance. Mr van Houten said the cuts were made necessary by the continuing economic difficulties in Europe and China. The job cuts will reportedly be concentrated in the electronics and lighting divisions, rather than the company's highly profitable healthcare equipment division. They will involve all layers apart from R&D and staff who work directly with clients. Shares in Philips were unchanged at €19.03 in trading on the Amsterdam exchange, against a slight drop of 0.1 per cent in the AEX index. Philips strongly beat expectations with its earnings in the second quarter, reporting earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation (ebita) up 21 per cent year on year to €450m, while revenues grew 15 per cent to €5.9bn. Growth was led by a 7 per cent jump in the company's healthcare sector, but the lighting and consumer living divisions also grew solidly. This suggested that restructuring moves carried out by Mr Houten in his first year on the job were having an effect. He has licensed out the money-losing television business as a joint venture, shifting emphasis to the fast-growing healthcare business and reorganising the production chain in the lighting division. About 60 per cent of the company's top 200 officers had been moved or replaced as of this summer. Analysts took the announcement as evidence that Philips was continuing its aggressive restructuring programme to meet targets in the face of a worsening macroeconomic climate. "Getting another 120-140bp [margin] support from this additional €300m makes me quite comfortable that they can make the guidance next year," said Martin Prozesky of Sanford Bernstein. But Citigate analyst Mark Fielding wrote that the cuts suggested that reaching Philips" 2013 target of a 10-12 per cent margin for ebita would be "challenging." Philips has struggled with its consumer electronics business from low-cost Asian producers. Lighting has been hit by the slump in construction and a failure by customers to shift to new low-energy technologies as rapidly as expected.