Sales have dropped by 6% year-on-year at Philips due to the coronavirus crisis, although it has reported a strong increase in sales of medical equipment.

Overall sales in the second quarter of 2020 were €4.4m, a drop on the same period last year, but its connected care division grew by 14%, bringing in €1.3bn.

Chief executive Frans van Houten told public broadcaster NOS that the business was busy scaling up medical production ready for new waves of coronavirus infections. ‘I think that we should be prepared for the coronavirus to be part of our society for the next two years,’ he said.

Sales dropped in consumer goods such as kitchenware, while there were delays in the sales of medical apparatus to hospitals, he said. The company expects the second half of the year to be more profitable, particularly in providing breathing and monitoring medical equipment.