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The company blamed poor lighting sales on the anaemic construction industry in developed countries, and said its gross sales in lighting would grow in the low single digits. But production capacity is being severely underutilised due to low demand, mainly in western Europe. Margins in the company’s lighting division fell to some 4 per cent, well below the 10 per cent margin in the first quarter.Philips also said low consumer demand in western Europe had hit its consumer products revenues. It also noted some impact from the expected spin-off of its television division to Hong Kong-based TPV, which it announced in April. The company will report that the audio-visual and media section of its consumer products division has fallen into the red. An analyst said Philips officers had told him that the spin-off of the TV business had created customer and retailer uncertainty and led to falling TV sales, which also hurt knock-on sales of other audio-visual products.

For many decades, the transformers that populate our power grids have led a fairly one-sided existence. Now, however, their world is being shaken up and a lot more is expected of them: They should cater for the plethora of renewable power sources appearing on the grid; they are required to help maintain grid power quality; they are expected to do their bit in reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and they have to fit in with smart grids. Of course, the traditional commercial pressures to decrease all-round costs, extend asset life, improve monitoring and optimize maintenance still remain.

Much of the volatility in the cable market is tied to the raw material costs on the supply side. As a result, the pricing trends of cables and wires are not entirely driven by market demand. The market is also far from being homogenous, with the end user profiles ranging from wholesale purchasers, telecom operators, retail users, utility managers, power supply companies as well as enterprises. The leverage enjoyed by the buyers is by and large directly proportional to their off take and inversely proportional to the criticality of cables and wires to their operations. While the technology behind cables has remained consistent, it has not stayed static. As with most applied sciences, cables have witnessed a relentless stakeholder drive towards achieving better transmission with lesser resources. This has led to improvement and improvisations in the core conductor as well as its assembly technologies.