THE HAGUE: Dutch electronics giant Philips on Monday posted a sevenfold leap in first quarter profits after spinning off its lighting business last year.
Net profit soared to 259 million euros ($281 million) in the first three months of 2017, compared with 37 million euros in the same period last year.
The year-earlier figure has been down some 63 percent, due mainly to taxes linked to its efforts to divest the lighting business.
The Amsterdam-based group said sales also rose to 5.7 billion euros from January to March, up 3.6 percent over the first quarter of 2016.
"We had a solid start to the year," chief executive Frans van Houten said, pointing to growth in the company's health business.
"Despite continued volatility in the markets in which we operate, our HealthTech portfolio grew three percent and achieved further operational improvements," he added in a statement.
Philips was best known for the manufacture of lightbulbs, electrical appliances and television sets.
But it pulled out of these activities in face of fierce competition from Asia to focus on health technology such as computer tomography and molecular imaging, as well as household appliances such as electrical toothbrushes and kitchen equipment.
The group, which sold its first lightbulb a few years after it was founded in 1891, listed its Philips Lighting division at the end of May, netting proceeds of 750 million euros.
Van Houten said Philips had further reduced its shareholding in Philips Lighting over the first quarter to 55 percent.