Corning Earnings Rise on Cost Cuts

By Ben Fox Rubin 

Corning Inc. said its fourth-quarter profit jumped as the company posted lower production and restructuring costs, though sales slipped.

For the first quarter, the company warned that it anticipates glass volume in its display technologies segment will be down slightly sequentially, in line with normal seasonality. Corning also expects LCD glass price declines to be higher than previous quarters.

The maker of TV screen glass in October warned its fourth-quarter results would be lower than its third-quarter's due to seasonal declines in its non-display businesses and a "more significant downturn in optical fiber sales volume" in North America and China.

Corning, which relies on sales of LCD-TV glass for the bulk of its profit, said price declines for the quarter again were moderate. Total LCD glass volume improved 4% over the year-ago period. The total glass volume combines Corning's wholly owned business and Samsung Corning Precision Materials. Corning earlier this month completed its acquisition of Samsung Corning Precision Materials, which was a joint venture with Samsung Display Co. that makes LCD glass in Korea.

Corning reported a profit of $421 million, or 30 cents a share, up from $155 million, or 10 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding restructuring costs and other items, core earnings rose to 29 cents from 28 cents a share.

Revenue shrank 8.9% to $1.96 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters predicted earnings of 27 cents a share on revenue of $1.93 billion.

Gross margin rose to 39.2% from 37.2%, as production costs sank 12%. Also restructuring, impairment and other charges fell to $71 million from $133 million a year ago.

Shares closed Monday at $18.22 and were down 1.8% in recent premarket trading. As of the close, the stock has risen 5.3% over the past three months.

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