Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Royal Philips Electronics, commonly known as Philips) is a Dutch multinational electronics company headquartered in Amsterdam. It was founded in Eindhoven in 1891 by Gerard Philips and his father Frederik. It is one of the largest electronics companies in the world and employs around 122,000 people across more than 60 countries.
The Philips brand is often associated with light bulbs and shavers. The company brought out their first model of shaver, the Philishave, in the 1920s. Like many other multinational companies such as Nestlé and British American Tobacco in the first half of the 20th century, Philips were able to take advantage of the post-war market and expand quite aggressively.
In the 2010s Philips restructured as a health brand.
Philips is now made up of three divisions: Philips Consumer Lifestyle (formerly Philips Consumer Electronics and Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care), Philips Lighting and Philips Healthcare (formally Philips Medical Systems).
As a coffee manufacturer, Philips owns two formally independent coffee machine companies – Saeco and Senseo. Philips Saeco mainly make super automatic espresso machines. Also known as bean to cup coffee makers, these differ from semi-automatic machines in that the machine grinds coffee beans automatically before brewing, as opposed to the grinding being a separate step as with the semi-automatic machines.
Philips Senseo machines are Philips branch of coffee capsule machines. Some of Philips’ main capsule machine competitors are Nespresso and Keurig.