| To: John Hayman who wrote (2189) | 12/10/2007 7:22:48 PM | | From: Robert Salasidis | | | | LCD has one less fear of near term competition
TOKYO, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Japan's Toshiba Corp (6502.T: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday it has shelved plans to sell ultra-thin OLED (organic light-emitting diode) TVs in 2009/10 because of the cost of mass production.
Toshiba will stick to its plans to make OLED displays for mobile phones and will see if making OLED TVs is financially viable later, Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Ohmori said. (Reporting by Mayumi Negishi) |
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| To: Robert Salasidis who wrote (2190) | 12/10/2007 7:44:16 PM | | From: Sidney Street | | | | | Corning went out of its way, at a recent presentation, to emphasize that they will get not only the glass but a silicone based edge seal product on OLED screens. So not to worry. |
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| From: JakeStraw | 3/28/2008 9:05:09 AM | | | | | | Corning Holds Grand Opening Ceremony for LCD Glass Plant in China
Thursday March 27, 9:00 pm ET
Beijing plant will supply panel makers on the China mainland
biz.yahoo.com |
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| From: John Hayman | 4/29/2008 8:33:02 AM | | | | | | Earnings.....not too bad, and good forward guidance.
John
go glw
Corning Reports Strong First-Quarter Earnings
Tuesday April 29, 6:45 am ET
Significant year-over-year growth
CORNING, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW - News) today announced results for the first quarter of 2008.
First-Quarter Highlights
Sales reached $1.62 billion, up 24% year over year.
Earnings per share were $0.64, including a $327 million gain related to the pending Pittsburgh Corning Corporation bankruptcy proceeding.
Excluding the special item for the first quarter, earnings per share were $0.44,* better than the company’s guidance of $0.41 to $0.43, and up 57% from last year.
Display Technologies’ glass volume increased 2% sequentially and 50% year over year. Samsung Corning Precision Glass Co. Ltd.’s (SCP) volume was flat sequentially and increased 46% year over year.
The company’s sales and earnings comparisons benefited from the weakening U.S. dollar, primarily versus the Japanese yen.
Gross margin for the quarter was 52%, an all-time record for the company.
Second-Quarter Outlook Highlights
Sales are expected in the range of $1.71 billion to $1.75 billion, an increase of more than 20% compared to second quarter last year.
Earnings per share, excluding special items, are anticipated in the range of $0.47 to $0.50.*
Combined LCD glass volume for Corning’s wholly owned business and Samsung Corning Precision is expected to increase 6% to 9% sequentially, with the wholly owned business up 2% to 5% and SCP up 8% to 13%.
Telecommunications sales are expected to be up more than 10% sequentially.
Wendell P. Weeks, chairman and chief executive officer, said, “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. The global consumer appetite for LCD televisions continues to grow.” Weeks noted that very strong manufacturing performance in Corning’s Display Technologies segment also contributed to the excellent first-quarter results.
“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% to 30% range that we provided earlier this year,” Weeks added.
*These are non-GAAP financial measures. The reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures is provided in the tables following this news release, as well as on the company’s investor relations website.
Quarter One Financial Comparisons
Q1 2008 Q4 2007 % Change Q1 2007 % Change
Net Sales in millions $1,617 $1,582 2% $1,307 24%
Net Income in millions $1,029 $717 44% $327 215%
Non-GAAP Net Income in millions*
$702 $643 9% $452 55%
GAAP EPS $0.64 $0.45 42% $0.20 220%
Non-GAAP EPS* $0.44 $0.40 10% $0.28 57%
Overview of Business Segment Results
First-quarter sales for Corning’s Display Technologies segment were $829 million, a 7% sequential increase and a 58% increase over the first quarter 2007. The display segment results were positively impacted by a favorable U.S.-dollar-to-Japanese-yen exchange rate in the quarter. Price declines were consistent with previous quarters.
Telecommunications segment sales in the first quarter were $421 million, a 2% sequential decline and a 4% decline from quarter one 2007. Strong optical fiber volume and higher fiber-to-the-premises sales were offset primarily by the slow start of several customer projects. Corning anticipates that some of these projects will begin in the second quarter. Excluding the impact of last year’s divestiture of Corning’s submarine cabling business, quarter one sales increased 3%* versus last year.
Environmental Technologies segment sales in the first quarter were $197 million, a 4% sequential increase and a nearly 10% increase over the first quarter 2007.
Specialty Materials segment sales were $83 million, about even with quarter one 2007 results. The Life Sciences segment had sales of $81 million, a 10% sequential increase and a 7% increase from quarter one 2007.
Corning’s equity earnings from Dow Corning were $80 million in the first quarter, compared to $84 million in the previous quarter and $92 million a year ago. Dow Corning’s results were impacted by higher raw material prices.
Special Items
The company’s first-quarter results included a non-cash credit of $327 million pretax and after-tax related to the pending Pittsburgh Corning Corporation bankruptcy proceeding. As a result of significant progress made on negotiating a revised plan of reorganization, Corning reduced its estimated liability for the asbestos settlement from about $1 billion to $675 million.
Second-Quarter 2008 Outlook
James B. Flaws, vice chairman and chief financial officer, said, “Global demand for LCD televisions and laptop computers remains strong going into the second quarter. We continue to closely monitor the U.S. retail market, but we have not seen any indication that the U.S. slowdown is impacting our LCD glass business.”
Business Highlights
Combined LCD glass volume for Corning’s wholly owned business and Samsung Corning Precision is expected to increase 6% to 9% sequentially, with the wholly owned business up 2% to 5% and SCP up 8% to 13%. Price declines in the quarter will again be moderate. Second-quarter sales are also expected to benefit from a weaker dollar.
Corning’s Telecommunications segment sales are expected to increase more than 10% sequentially. Growth will be driven by significant fiber-to-the-premise demand from a number of customers, as well as the expected start up of several customer projects.
Environmental Technologies segment sales are anticipated to be flat to up 5% in the quarter.
Specialty Materials segment sales are expected to increase about 20%. Sales in the Life Sciences segment are expected to be up slightly.
Equity earnings in total are expected to be up 10% to 15%. This includes Dow Corning Corporation earnings which are expected to increase in the range of 15% to 20% for the quarter.
Full-Year Outlook
Flaws noted that the company is increasing its capital spending plan for the year to $1.8 to $2.0 billion. This increase is driven primarily by the acceleration of LCD capacity in anticipation of a stronger display market, and growing demand for Corning’s new Gorilla™ glass. Higher precious metals prices are also contributing to the increased capital spending. “Despite this increase, we still expect our free cash flow to be at least $500 million* this year,” Flaws said.
Flaws added that, due to the continued slowdown in the U.S. freight industry, Corning now expects domestic Class 8 truck engine production to come in at the lower end of its estimated range of 175,000 to 225,000 this year. As a result, Corning has adjusted its expectation for diesel product sales to grow 15% to 20% this year, versus its original expectation of at least 25%.
“Our first-quarter results have given us strong momentum heading into the second quarter,” Flaws said. “Although cautious, we look forward to another excellent quarter for Corning.”
Upcoming Investor Meetings
Corning Incorporated Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer James B. Flaws will participate in an open investor luncheon in Dallas on May 1. Peter F. Volanakis, president and chief operating officer, will be presenting at the JP Morgan Technology Conference in Boston on May 19, and Wendell P. Weeks, chairman and chief executive officer, will be presenting at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in New York on May 29. On June 16 and 17, Flaws will be hosting open investor luncheons in Denver and Minneapolis. Investors interested in attending any of the luncheons should contact Corning’s investor relations department for additional information. |
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| From: John Hayman | 5/15/2008 9:14:05 AM | | | | | | Corning To Showcase Gorilla(TM) Glass at SID Display Week 2008
Thursday May 15, 8:30 am ET
New glass designed for customer applications in which high strength is critical
CORNING, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW - News) announced today that it will be featuring its recently introduced Gorilla™ glass at SID Display Week 2008, May 19-23 in Los Angeles. This new thin-sheet glass was designed such that, upon chem-strengthening, it provides device manufacturers with a highly durable, scratch-resistant liquid crystal display (LCD) display cover. With its unique set of characteristics, Corning Gorilla glass offers added protection for personal electronic devices and is especially valuable for those featuring touch screen technologies.
ADVERTISEMENT
The consumer electronics market requires materials innovation that enables product designers to pack more features into a single device, including higher-resolution displays. This is particularly true for handheld electronic devices. Device makers have long been challenged with balancing the trade-offs of appearance versus product durability. When it comes to insuring that the display’s optical quality is maintained over the life of a device, Corning Gorilla glass provides an optimal solution. It is a thin, optically pure sheet glass that has superior scratch resistance when compared to other strengthened glass products currently on the market.
“What sets Gorilla glass apart is its enhanced durability,” said Corning’s Gorilla glass program manager James E. Hollis. “This is especially important for handheld devices that are routinely thrown around by consumers. A protective cover made from Corning Gorilla glass is capable of providing the best protection for LCD screens versus any other glass in the marketplace today.”
Corning Gorilla glass is available in a variety of thicknesses, from 0.7mm up to 2.0mm, providing flexibility in device design as well as glass processing. It is an environmentally friendly alumino-silicate glass produced with Corning’s proprietary fusion draw process. Fusion draw technology enables the production of uniform thin sheets with a pristine surface. It is also adaptable to scalable sheet sizes for optimal throughput. The result is a drawn surface that in many cases requires no additional finishing for some applications while providing a wide range of thickness options, low surface roughness and superior flatness. These benefits enable Corning customers to optimize device design and fabrication efficiencies.
Corning will showcase its product portfolio for the display industry at the 2008 SID conference. Included will be the Corning Thin Sheet Xtra™ Series, the Vita™ OLED sealing solution, an inspection objective for inspecting glass after circuits are printed, and a lithography objective for printing circuitry on the LCD glass. For more information, visit the Corning booth, #635, in the Los Angeles Convention Center or Corning's Web site at www.corning.com/specialtymaterials. |
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| To: steve kammerer who wrote (2197) | 12/30/2008 1:11:55 PM | | From: mlkr | | | | | If holiday sales not moving this up would wait january affect to pass to buy for long term hold..just remember it went down to 3-4 dollars during last recession and then GLW had to reinvent itself as mainly LCD firm. This is my coffee cub reading of course... |
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| From: Glenn Petersen | 1/11/2009 3:33:22 PM | | | | | | A Jolt Brings Corning Back to Its Research Roots
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 11, 2009
Filed at 2:58 p.m. ET
CORNING, N.Y. (AP) -- By day, Kishor Gadkaree puts samples of a honeycomb-shaped filter into a miniature gas chamber that simulates the insides of a coal-burning smokestack.
These rigorous tests will take years. But by night, Gadkaree dreams that this filter -- which is designed to neutralize the poisonous mercury spewed by the world's coal-fired power plants -- will be the next big hit for a nearly 160-year-old company that recently survived a brush with extinction.
At its newly expanded research haven, Corning Inc. is betting tens of millions of dollars that tougher environmental regulations, plus a few more years of experiments, will turn the mercury trap into something that can generate at least $500 million to $1 billion in annual sales.
''We are going over those hurdles one by one,'' Gadkaree said as he showed off his shelf-top mini-flue at Sullivan Park, a hilltop campus outside this rural town of 10,000 that gave the company its name. ''We can show it works. Now we're trying to find out how much customers will pay for it.''
Corning is famed for entwining specialty materials in potent technologies, from figuring how to make light bulb blanks for Thomas Edison in 1880 to devising the hair-thin optical fibers that helped spur the Internet revolution.
''We have set ourselves up to be patient,'' said Mark Newhouse, who oversees Corning's development of new technologies. ''We talk about how many businesses we will create in a decade, not in a couple of years.''
But while Corning amassed a decade-after-decade array of breakthroughs ranging from ovenproof Pyrex dishes and cathode-ray tubes to auto-pollution filters and space-telescope mirrors, the company has had to endure multiple reincarnations.
Never did a cyclical slide turn so ugly as in 2001-2002, when the dot-com bust punctured the booming telecommunications equipment market.
Lopsided investments in fiber optics almost capsized Corning: Its stock tumbled from $113 in September 2000 to a mere $1.10 in October 2002 as annual revenue shrank to $3.2 billion from $7.1 billion.
Corning quickly retooled itself as the world's biggest maker of liquid-crystal-display glass for flat-screen televisions and computers. The ultra-thin monitors delivered 90 percent of Corning's $2.2 billion profit in 2007.
Nonetheless, the company has learned the hard way that it needs to spread its risks over a variety of high-growth businesses.
During its perilous downturn, former Chief Executive James Houghton came out of retirement to right the ship launched by his great-great-grandfather, Amory Houghton Sr., when he bought a stake in a Massachusetts glassmaker in 1851.
Known to some as ''Dark Angel'' for his 1980s moves to shelve slow-growth Corning businesses, upon his return James Houghton mothballed fiber plants and slashed the work force from 43,000 to 22,500. He offloaded the once-stellar photonics business, which made the optical switches and other exotica that manage the rapid flow of light signals through optical fiber.
The patriarch and his chosen successor, Wendell Weeks, also turned back the clock. They championed wider exploration of arenas in which Corning boasts expertise, a more freewheeling philosophy once associated with Bell Laboratories and other high-tech powerhouses.
One key difference: While ensuring an unusually high 10 percent of revenue is allocated to research, Corning's management imposed a more rigorous, companywide system for nurturing the best ideas along step by step.
Out of hundreds of projects each year, it chooses to keep pursuing just a handful seen as likely to hit a jackpot. Among the latest high-wager hopefuls, in addition to the mercury filters for coal plants: green lasers to equip cell phones with projectors, micro-reactors to enhance chemical processing and silicon bonded to glass to extend battery life for handheld electronics.
''Anything related to glass and glass derivatives, they have probably the best, most concentrated group of experts on the planet,'' said analyst C.J. Muse of Barclays Capital.
With the economy hurling spitballs, Corning's stock stands around $11 a share, down from $28 in May. The company recently trimmed its plans for 2009 capital spending by up to $200 million after an abrupt slowdown in LCD-TV sales -- a nagging reminder that relying on one colossal cash cow product leaves it vulnerable to cyclical swings.
So far, research is largely unscathed. With lab space enlarged by a $300 million investment last year, Sullivan Park is packed again with 1,800 scientists, engineers and technicians, up from 1,100 in 2002.
Gadkaree, who has 67 patents in 25 years at Corning, is one of 15 active research fellows who are given more leeway to explore projects of special interest.
In the 1990s, he developed a water-purification filter that was shelved because the market wasn't deemed big enough. But because it was also capable of capturing metals, the filter got another look in 2004 when signs resurfaced that a long-anticipated federal law eventually could impose a 90 percent reduction on mercury emissions.
Burning coal sends an estimated 300 tons of mercury into the air annually, with U.S. plants alone accounting for nearly 50 tons. As many as 630,000 children born each year in the U.S. are at risk of learning disabilities and physical ailments related to the neurotoxin, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Laws in New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts already require coal plants to snare at least 85 percent of mercury emissions, and more than a dozen other states led by Maryland and Pennsylvania are imposing their own stringent restrictions beginning in 2010.
Corning expects its carbon filter will be more cost-effective than a current technique of injecting activated carbon-based chemicals into flue gas. While the chemicals absorb mercury, they can also contaminate a plant's fly ash residues, which are an ingredient in cement and other construction materials.
The new filter employs a ceramic honeycomb that was invented by Corning in the early 1970s and sits at the heart of the smog-busting catalytic converter in automobiles. The filter contains hundreds of tiny passages impregnated with chemicals that stabilize and corral mercury particles.
The big question is whether the filter will be able to capture 90 percent of mercury ''as we make the filter larger and run ever longer periods,'' Gadkaree said. ''Back in 2004, I would have said the probability (of success) is about 10 percent. Now I'd say maybe 50 percent.''
Even those odds are encouraging to Corning, given how big the market for mercury abatement could be. Coal-fired utilities are the largest source of mercury pollution that remains unregulated by the EPA, and yet coal is plentiful and homegrown.
Despite the rise of wind, solar and other renewable-energy alternatives, ''there's at least 20 years where even we will concede that there's a role for coal,'' said John Rumpler, senior attorney for Boston-based Environment America. ''That's a long time horizon for anybody to be investing in mercury-control technologies.''
Gadkaree, 55, knows too well that without customers, great innovations go nowhere. He hopes this one can leave a bigger mark.
''Getting a paycheck, everybody can do that, right?'' he said. ''But `you did something good' -- at the end of my career, I want to be able to say that.''
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press
nytimes.com |
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