By Toby Sterling
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Philips (AS:PHG), the lighting, consumer and healthcare products company, said on Tuesday its comparable sales rose 2 percent to 5.3 billion euros (3.78 billion pounds) in the first quarter.
The company said its operational result, or adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation, rose to 327 million euros in the first quarter from 304 million euros in the same period a year earlier.
Analysts polled by Reuters had put the EBITA figure at 324 million.
CEO Frans van Houten said he was "encouraged" by the company's return to sales growth in the first quarter after a fall in the fourth quarter of 2014.
The company is now forecasting a "modest" increase in comparable sales for the full year 2015. It said it is still running about 1 percent behind its medium-term target of reaching an operating margin of at least 11 percent of sales in 2016, as stated in a January warning.
At Philips' healthcare division, which suffered from a lengthy production shutdown in the United States in 2014, the company said on Tuesday order intake and sales grew. However, operating profit was just 17 million euros, from 109 million euros in the same period in 2014.
Philips' shares are up 14.5 percent so far in 2015, compared to a 20 percent rise in the benchmark AEX index of blue chip Dutch shares.
