Strong growth in the high single digits for its diagnostic imaging equipment helped propel fourth-quarter financial results in the healthcare business at Philips. Meanwhile, the company's Personal Health segment slipped on lower sales of oral healthcare products.
For the quarter (end-December 31, 2020), Philips' Diagnosis & Treatment division saw sales of 2.458 billion euros ($2.98 billion U.S.), down 5% on a nominal basis from sales of 2.582 billion euros ($3.13 billion) in the same period the year before, but up 1% after adjusting for currency changes. The division's earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization (EBITA) were 314 million euros ($381 million), unchanged from the year before.
In discussing the fourth-quarter results, Philips said it saw high-single-digit growth in sales of diagnostic imaging systems and a midsingle-digit decline in sales of image-guided therapy and ultrasound systems, due to the postponement of system sales because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The decline also led to a 14% drop in EBITA margin.
On a geographic basis, growth was driven by higher sales in China and Central and Eastern Europe, which was partially offset by the Middle East and Turkey. There was a decline in the low single digits in mature geographies, with low-single-digit growth in Western Europe and a midsingle-digit decline in North America.
For the full year, the Diagnosis & Treatment business saw sales of 8.175 billion euros ($9.92 billion), down 4% on a nominal basis and down 2% after currency adjustment from sales of 8.485 billion ($10.3 billion) for all of 2019. The division's EBITA for 2020 was 704 million euros ($854.5 million), compared with EBITA of 856 million euros ($1.039 billion) in 2019.
The company's Personal Health business saw sales of 1.824 billion euros ($2.21 billion), down 1% on a nominal basis but up 5% after currency adjustment from sales of 1.85 billion euros ($2.25 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2019. The company said that sales of oral healthcare products saw a decline in the low single digits.
For the full year, the Personal Health business saw sales of 5.407 billion euros ($6.56 billion), down 8% on a nominal basis and down 4% after currency adjustment from sales of 5.854 billion euros ($7.11 billion) in 2019. The division's EBITA was 639 million euros ($775.6 million) in 2020, compared with 869 million euros ($1.055 billion) in 2019.
Philips said a strong recovery in the second half of the year was not enough to offset declines in the Personal Health business in the first half, with the company seeing a decline in the high single digits in oral healthcare.
![Overview of the study design. (A) The fully automated deep learning framework was developed to estimate body composition (BC) (defined as subcutaneous adipose tissue [SAT] in liters; visceral adipose tissue [VAT] in liters; skeletal muscle [SM] in liters; SM fat fraction [SMFF] as a percentage; and intramuscular adipose tissue [IMAT] in deciliters) from MRI. The fully automated framework comprised one model (model 1) to quantify different BC measures (SAT, VAT, SM, SMFF, and IMAT) as three-dimensional (3D) measures from whole-body MRI scans. The second model (model 2) was trained to identify standardized anatomic landmarks along the craniocaudal body axis (z coordinate field), which allowed for subdividing the whole-body measures into different subregions typically examined on clinical routine MRI scans (chest, abdomen, and pelvis). (B) BC was quantified from whole-body MRI in over 66,000 individuals from two large population-based cohort studies, the UK Biobank (UKB) (36,317 individuals) and the German National Cohort (NAKO) (30,291 individuals). Bar graphs show age distribution by sex and cohort. BMI = body mass index. (C) After the performance assessment of the fully automated framework, the change in BC measures, distributions, and profiles across age decades were investigated. Age-, sex-, and height-adjusted body composition reference curves were calculated and made publicly available in a web-based z-score calculator (https://circ-ml.github.io).](https://img.auntminnieeurope.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/05/body-comp.XgAjTfPj1W.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
