ASML and Royal Philips remain the companies that spend the most money on Research & Development (R&D) in the Netherlands. Both companies also showed strong growth year-on-year, as did most of the companies that were awarded a place in the annual top 30 of Technisch Weekblad (TW). At about two-thirds of the companies that gained a place in the R&D Top 30, R&D expenditure increased last year; only six companies saw expenditure decrease, TW reports.
Signify, the former Philips Lighting, is a major absence from the list. Normally, this company is always high on the innovation lists, but “unfortunately, Signify did not submit its data to TW and therefore we miss this player in the list”, according to Technisch Weekblad in an explanation. NXP, DAF Trucks, and VDL are also high in the top 30.
The biggest increase this year is seen at ASML; with €105.7 million more R&D expenditure than last year, the chip machine builder is proud to be in first place. “As a technology leader, we must continue to invest in R&D,” says Joost van Hees, Director of Strategic Technology at ASML in TW. “At present, we are investing particularly in new technologies for our holistic lithography product portfolio. For example, we are working on a new generation of our EUV platform; the high-NA systems, for which the first orders have already been received.” ASML’s global R&D expenditure also increased: from €1.1 billion to €1.26 billion. “My expectation for 2018 is that we will continue along these lines.”
Royal Philips is in second place this year with €46 million more expenditures than last year. This could have been even more, if the company had not been split into a Healthtech company (Royal Philips) and a Lighting company (recently named Signify) by February 1, 2016. The majority interest in Signify was recently reduced to a minority interest and, for this reason, Signify’s R&D expenditure is no longer reported as Royal Philips expenditure.
Prodrive Technologies from Son is a newcomer to the list: with €36.3 million in R&D investments, the company enters at 17th place.
