Philips tells it like it is. Even the highlights of its first-quarter earnings report begin with the words “global downturn”. It provides a stark corrective to any tentative sense that the worst of the downturn may be past. The Dutch electronics group says the first three months of this year were worse than the final quarter of 2008 (when Philips warned sales and sentiment had slumped “in a very dangerous way”). It foresees no material change this quarter. Organic sales were down in all regions – by 11 per cent in North America, 18 per cent in western Europe, 25 per cent in China. And declines were felt across all sectors.

That, disappointingly, includes the much-vaunted healthcare sector – at the heart of Philips’ efforts in recent years to focus itself on higher-margin technology businesses and diversify away from consumer electronics and semiconductors. At least the organic sales here fell only 2 per cent, but order intake, particularly imaging systems, fell 17 per cent as US hospitals cut capital spending.