By Ben Fox Rubin
Corning Inc.'s (GLW) first-quarter income rose 4.2% as the maker
of TV-screen glass benefited from lower tax costs, though revenue
declined.
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. Last
year, the company tweaked its LCD-glass pricing strategy to help
stabilize prices.
Corning has said it continues to face an uncertain global
economy, but sees prospects for growth in its specialty-materials,
telecommunications, environmental-technologies and life-sciences
segments. It has expected market share in its LCD-glass business to
be stable and price declines to be moderate.
"We stabilized earnings in our display-technologies business
and, going forward, we believe price declines will continue to be
moderate as a result of the customer agreements we entered into
last year," Chief Financial Officer James B. Flaws said
Wednesday.
For the latest period, Corning posted a profit of $494 million,
or 33 cents a share, up from $474 million, or 31 cents a share, a
year earlier. Excluding acquisition-related costs and other items,
per-share earnings rose to 30 cents from 26 cents.
Net sales fell 5.5% to $1.81 billion.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were recently expecting a
profit of 24 cents a share on sales of $1.96 billion.
Gross margin narrowed to 42.4% from 42.9%, though input costs
fell 4.7%.
Provisions for income tax were $34 million, compared with $118
million a year earlier.
Revenue fell 7.8% in the display-technologies segment, which
contains the LCD-TV glass operations. The telecom segment posted
7.5% lower revenue, and environmental technologies reported 13%
lower sales. Life-sciences sales increased 34%.
Shares closed at $13.13 Tuesday and were inactive premarket. The
stock is up 4% so far this year.
Write to Ben Fox Rubin at ben.rubin@dowjones.com.
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