Koninklijke Philips N.V. (NYSE:PHG) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Roy Jakobs: No, it should grow. So we expect…

Veronika Dubajova: It should grow. Okay.

Roy Jakobs: Yeah, yeah. It should grow.

Veronika Dubajova: Okay. That’s great. And then my second question was — and I think where you alluded to this in your prepared remarks some of the geopolitical risks, obviously thinking about shipping and freight costs. Obviously, you have some very localized manufacturing in the Middle East for the CT business. Just kind of curious how much of your legal room, I think that very highly technical term have you embedded around those risks when you’ve given the 2024 guidance? And I guess what is for you the single most significant area of concern that you have? Maybe Abhijit can chime in also on the freight side of things there. Thank you guys.

Roy Jakobs: Yeah. I think we alluded to the uncertainty because we just learned that the world around us — and remains volatile. I think the guidance that we have been giving the 3% to 5%, we are very confident in, based upon the execution improvements that we have been putting into 2023 because that gave us more agility. Also to adapt to situations like we see today, it gave us productivity to absorb some of potential cost increases. And I would also put into perspective kind of yes there is Red Sea for example developments. But if we look to the total freight cost that we have, this is a kind of immaterial impact that we currently foresee, there might be some kind of delivery times challenges, but actually that’s — we’re also overcoming because we are kind of preempting that and we’re working already full mitigation.

So we are vigilant of what could happen to the world so far, kind of, we are on top of the developments both in Middle East. And I think the bigger concern that I think and you alluded to it earlier is that we need a strong global economy and we need all the geographies to contribute. And, therefore, China getting stronger I think is something that of course we all welcome. But also rest of world we see some strengthening in 2024. North America should be a bit stronger than in 2023 and we see also a focus of growth that we go after in Asia, for example, with Indonesia and Japan. And also Saudi we see some good opportunities. So we watch the world carefully I think by adjusting our operating model. We have become more agile to adapt to situations if they would occur.

Currently we are dealing with any known issues well and they are taken into the guidance as you have seen.

Veronika Dubajova: Thanks guys.

Operator: The next question comes on the line of Lisa Clive from Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Lisa Clive: Hi, thanks very much. Just a question on your order book and the match up of inflation and cost increases, I know fairly early on as inflation picked up, you did manage to put through price increases. And just wondering if you could just remind us roughly what quarter that started and when that started coming through your backlog and after that initial round of price increases have you been able to continue moving prices up as inflation has not yet abated?

Abhijit Bhattacharya: Yeah. I think what we did was we saw first small bit coming into Q3 and then Q4 a little bit more, but I think most of the let’s say price increases you will see coming in 2024 that is what we had planned. So in [ph], we don’t see further strengthening of prices. So we are where we are. Our margins are at a good level. We are driving productivity, et cetera to drive costs down. In selected areas in health systems, we continue with the price increases that we’ve had but we are also seeing component pricing and other things coming down. So we will manage that as a mix into the pricing strategy for 2024.

Lisa Clive: Okay. And then just a question on your sleep apnea business. Novo Nordisk will have a readout from an OSA trial for their GLP-1. And clearly ODC [ph] is a major contributor to sleep apnea, although Omni [ph] on the other hand is a very under-diagnosed condition. So just thinking about how the world seemingly has changed in the last few months around GLP-1s and the potential for even better drugs the potential for eventually generics to help lower the price point. Does that change your long-term view on the sleep apnea business particularly in light of the fact that you’re actually just even going to be out of the market for a year or two as well at least in the US. Obviously you’re able to sell OUS but the US has historically been your biggest market?

Roy Jakobs: Yeah. Thank you, Lisa. I think we don’t see changing structurally the market opportunity. We believe that there is a significant patient base out there as you say that’s undiagnosed. Yes I think there will be a medication that will help address some of the causes of sleep apnea. We also note that on average a sleep apnea patient has five comorbidities, obesity is one of those. So this will help, but will not take the root causes away. We also know that CPAP BiPAP is by far the most effective therapy that is preferred and also in use and in demand. So we are committed to that segment. We also see the opportunity strong. We’re fully focused on working through now the clarified road map for the US. And outside of US, of course, we are already coming back into play. So we believe that there is a strong road ahead that we will work through based on the improved clarity that we now have.

Lisa Clive: Okay. Thanks for that.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] One moment please. We will now go to the next question. And the next question comes from the line of Sezgi Oezener from HSBC. Please go ahead. Hello, Sezgi your line’s on mute. Due to no response, I will go to the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Graham Doyle from UBS. Please go ahead.

Graham Doyle: Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just two kind of areas. So firstly just in terms of the adjustments and sort of the restructuring charge and secondly around the consent decree. In terms of adjustments kind of quick housekeeping one. Could you maybe elaborate on what the €81 million of D&T remediations related to in Q4 2023? And then just for 2024 it looks like if you do the sums roughly 100 basis points of the expected adjustments to EBIT is going to be related to the recall, again, which it just seems — it seems a large number given you also say in the statement that more than 99% of the sleep recall was done. So could you give us a sense on when these adjustments will end I suppose. And then separate to that just on the consent decree, is there anything in your 2025 guide for Sleep & Respiratory sales in the US?