Royal Dutch Philips Electronics Ltd. is scheduled to see a LED lightening application center run into formal operation in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, this September.
Frans van Houten, CEO of it, said in an interview recently that it kicked off construction of the center in the southwestern Chinese city in 2011 and with an area of 10,000 square meters, the center would witness over 80 percent of the products be LED lightening solutions. And in it, not only indoor lightening solutions but also outdoor ones would be showed.
He reiterated that China, the second-biggest economy in the world, was playing a more important role in its global strategy. The market had become one of its global headquarters since 1920 and played a key role in its strategic innovations nowadays. It expected to benefit from opportunities rooted from fast growth of the market and believed that its tie with the central and western Chinese region would become closer.
He added that innovative inventions including LED technology played a significant role in helping change the life of people and focusing on medical treatment & healthcare, lightening and premium life, it would dedicate itself to improving the life of people.
It sold video, multimedia and accessory businesses in January this year and through the move, it shifted business focus onto medical treatment & healthcare, lightening and premium life. China has become a major operating and innovating centers of it and so far, it has had 13 plants, seven global business divisions, and four R&D centers there. It kicked off the construction of a LED lightening application center in Chengdu in 2011 and the center is expected to run into formal operation this September. It has had a medical video base in Suzhou, a famed tourism destination in Jiangsu Province. Notably, it has moved both global headquarters and management team of the home nursing and kitchen appliance division to Shanghai, the financial hub of China.
The CEO stressed that it saw products enter the market as early as 1920 and in 1985, it established its first joint venture there. It grew fast in the market in the past few years and the growth was always a two-digit one. China had become its second-biggest market around the globe and in September 2010, it said that it would build the market into a local one after Holland and the US. Currently, it has about 2,100 engineers there and the annual R&D expenditures always exceeded EUR 100 million.
