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.
Write to Ben Fox Rubin at ben.rubin@wsj.com
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