Royal Philips Electronics NV, Europe's largest consumer electronics maker, expects Asia-Pacific sales to increase to a third of the group's total by 2008 as economic and population growth spur demand.
"The twenty-first century will belong to Asia," Andreas Wente, president and chief executive of Philips Electronics Asia Pacific, said in Kuala Lumpur.
By 2008, "the fast-growing Asia Pacific region will have overtaken the European Union in sheer size of GDP." The region accounted for a quarter, or US$8.7 billion, of Amsterdam-based Philips' global sales of US$35 billion last year.
The region was the second-highest sales contributor after Europe in the group's first- and second-quarter earnings this year, overtaking North America, Wente said at a press conference.
Asian economies outside Japan will expand an average of 6.4 percent this year, probably the fastest growth in four years, said Robert Subbaraman at Lehman Brothers Japan Inc.
Philips wants to expand its business in Southeast Asia, where the market is worth about $25 billion. Malaysia will be the most important growth market, the company's second-largest after China, Wente said. Philips plans to enlarge its Indian market with lower-cost products, he said.
Philips employs 65,000 people in the region, a third of its global workforce. Most of them are in manufacturing, but Philips also has 3,200 employees in research and development in the region.
The company has a lighting and semiconductor factory in Thailand, a semiconductor factory in Malaysia, a wafer-fabrication plant in Singapore and factories for domestic production and lighting in Indonesia.
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