Senior executives at Philips Semiconductors (Eindhoven, the Netherlands) are warning of a 17- to 18-percent sequential drop in sales in the third quarter and of job cuts to come.
At a meeting in Amsterdam for financial analysts, the company warned that its third-quarter sales are expected to decline from the second quarter. Arthur van der Poel, a member of Philips' board of management, told analysts that the company would take a charge of about $18.5 million in the third quarter and of $83.5 million in the fourth quarter to cover costs associated with the anticipated job cuts. On the upside, Van der Poel said that inventory reductions throughout the industry appear to be coming to an end and order intake is improving, albeit with short delivery times.
