Corning Profit Triples

A growing global appetite for LCD televisions helped propel specialty glass maker Corning Inc. to a first-quarter profit of $1.09 billion, or 64 cents a share --three times its net earnings one year ago.

"This was a tremendously strong quarter for Corning. Display glass demand remains robust and we continue to operate our LCD glass substrate facilities at full capacity," said Corning Chairman and CEO Wendell P. Weeks.

The company said sales for the quarter were $1.62 billion, up 24 percent over the first quarter last year, driven largely by the 58 percent increase in sales in Corning's Display Technologies segment, which makes the glass for LCD TV screens and laptop computers. The segment's first-quarter sales were $829 million, a seven percent increase over last quarter. Glass volume increased two percent over last quarter and 50 percent year over year.

"Given the strength of LCD TV in the first quarter and our outlook for the remainder of the year, we now expect the global LCD glass market to grow at the upper end of the 25 percent to 30 percent range that we provided earlier this year," Weeks said.

Strong optical fiber volume and higher fiber-to-the-premises sales in the Telecommunications segment were offset primarily by the slow start of several customer projects which it expects to now start in the second quarter, Corning said. Telecommunications sales for the first quarter were $421 million, a four percent decline from one year ago. The company expects telecom sales to increase more than 10 percent in the second quarter.

Sales for the Environmental Technologies segment were up nearly 10 percent over last year, while sales in the Specialty Materials segment were about even with 2007 and the Life Sciences segment posted a seven percent sales increase.

Looking ahead to the second quarter, Corning said it expects sales to reach as high as $1.75 billion, an increase of more than 20 percent over the same time period last year. LCD glass volume is epected to increase by six to nine percent over the first quarter.

"Global demand for LCD televisions and laptop computers remains strong going into the second quarter. We continue to closely monitor the US retail market, but we have not seen any indication that the US slowdown is impacting our LCD glass business," said Corning Vice Chairman and CFO James P. Flaws.

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