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PHILIPS CEO QUITS; UNIT CONTINUES TO STRUGGLE

The head of Philips Consumer Communications quit in late August amidst the company’s announcement it doesn’t expect to break even this year.

PCC President and Chief Executive Officer Mike McTighe resigned from those positions effective 1 October.

When Lucent Technologies Inc. and Philips Electronics N.V. hatched the consumer communications joint venture last year, they may have been expecting by now to be making strides toward the goal of being one of the top three wireless handset manufacturers. Instead, the company in the last several months slowly has backed off that goal and now says its failure to break even this year is “mainly the result of delays in the introduction of new products.”

“A small number of new products in the field of mobile telephony have been delayed until November this year and the beginning of 1999,” said Ben Geerts, a spokesman at Philips International B.V.

“Product development in the field of wireless technologies is extremely complicated,” continued Geerts. “The delay has been caused by difficulties in matching the right technologies to the required specifications. This is taking longer than expected.”

Geerts declined to say when the company expects to break even.

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