Born to a Dutch family of Jewish heritage, Gerard Philips became interested in electronics and engineering. His father Frederik financed Gerard's purchase of the old factory building in Eindhoven where he established the first factory in 1891. They initially operated the Philips Company as a family business, with Gerard's younger brother Anton and Anton's son Frits Philips and son-in-law Frans Otten later brought into the business. The company’s first product in the form of a carbon-filament lamp was produced.

After a few struggling years with the business, Gerard brought in Anton Philips to work on the company’s dwindling sales. Under his guidance, the company began to expand rapidly and gain a firm hold as far as business was concerned. Soon after the arrival of Anton, the company was established as Philips Corporation and marketed their products to a wider client base.

During World War I, Anton Philips managed to increase sales by taking advantage of a boycott of German goods in several countries. He provided the markets with alternative products.

In 1912, Philips became a limited company, with publicly traded shares, listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. With developments in new lighting technology fueling a steady program of expansion, Philips established a research laboratory in 1914 – the world-renowned ‘NatLab’ – to study physical and chemical phenomena and stimulate product innovation.

In the 1920s, the company started to manufacture other products, such as vacuum tubes. In 1939 they introduced their electric razor, thePhilishave (marketed in the USA using the Norelco brand name). The “Chapel” is a radio with a built-in loudspeaker, which was designed during the early 1930s.

The company started making electric shavers in 1939 under the Philishave brand, and post-war they developed the Compact Cassette format and co-developed the Compact Disc format with Sony, as well as numerous other technologies.

As of 2012, Philips was the largest manufacturer of lighting in the world as measured by applicable revenues.

According to en.wikipedia and successstory.com