Corning, Inc. (GLW)

[mkendra]

Corning's 2nd-Quarter Net Up 35% on Higher Sales, Lower Expenses

Jul 30, 2013 07:54:04 (ET)




Saabira Chaudhuri



Corning Inc.'s (GLW) second-quarter profit rose 35% as sales climbed and expenses dropped.

Shares rose 3.2% to $15.88 in recent premarket trading as the company beat analyst estimates by a penny and said it expects to log year-over-year earnings growth for the current quarter.

Corning, which relies on sales of LCD-TV glass for the bulk of its profits, has seen its exposure to the consumer-electronics market push down results in recent quarters, as soft demand depresses prices for TV sets and the components they use.

Tuesday, Corning noted that LCD glass price declines were moderate, and less than the prior quarter. It expects declines for the third quarter to also be moderate, and consistent with the second quarter.

Corning reported a profit of $638 million, or 43 cents a share, compared with a year-ago profit of $474 million, or 31 cents a share. Excluding one-time items, per-share earnings were 32 cents, which the company said is a 23% rise from the year ago.

Sales climbed 3.9% to $1.98 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting a 31-cent per-share profit and $1.98 billion of sales.

Gross margin widened to 44.6% from 42.3% as input costs were flat.

Selling, general and administrative expenses fell 7%, while research, development and engineering expenses declined 3.2%.

Sales fell 1.6% to $631 million in the display-technologies segment, which contains the LCD TV glass operations.

The telecom unit reported a sales rise of 7.5% to $601 million.

Environmental-technologies logged an 8.4% sales decline to $228 million.

Specialty-materials sales rose 1.7%.

For the third quarter, Corning said it expects LCD glass volume to be consistent to up slightly when compared with the second quarter.