| From: Asymmetric | 12/9/2014 11:32:47 PM | | | | | | Corning Rises On Upbeat LCD Glass Forecast
By Teresa Rivas / Barrons / Dec 9, 2014
Corning (GLW) shares were trading higher Tuesday on its optimistic outlook for fourth-quarter LCD glass volumes.
Speaking at ahead of an industry conference, Lisa Ferrero, head of the firm’s display technologies business, said that Corning expects global shipments for LCD glass in the low-single digits for the current quarter, up from previous guidance for a small decline, thanks in part to consumers’ strong appetite for TVs.
Ferrero also noted that Corning is anticipating declines in pricing to moderate next year.
Cantor Fitzgerald’s Brian White reiterated a Hold rating on the stock, but noted that Corning’s guidance is in-line with TV demand he found during the Black Friday weekend.
From his note:
For Corning’s Display business, the company expects 4Q:14 LCD glass to increase by a low-single-digit percentage QoQ and better than prior expectations for flat to down QoQ (we are projecting down 1%), while pricing (we are modeling down 3%) to moderate even more than expected in 4Q:14. Relative to our 4Q:14 model, we believe this updated LCD glass outlook can add approximately $65 million to our $1.075 billion Display sales forecast and $0.02 in total EPS upside. Display contributed 42% of Corning’s 3Q:14 sales and the core contributor of profits; however, the company provided no updates around the remainder of its business segments.
S&P Capital IQ’s Angelo Zino also reiterated a Hold rating on the stock: “GLW states that it now expects Q4 LCD glass market demand to increase sequentially in the low-single digits percentage range versus previous expectations for a slight decline. GLW also anticipates Q4 glass price declines to be more moderate than anticipated at the start of the quarter and shipments to be up in line with its market growth expectation. We believe supply conditions remain tight, driven by increasing screen size and shipments within the TV space. Heading into 2015, we remain optimistic about pricing/shipment trends but expect visibility to remain limited.”
The shares were up 2.3% at recent check.
Samsung to use Corning's new ultra-thin Gorilla Glass in next-gen phone
By Jennifer Booton / Reporter - (MarketWatch)
Published: Dec 9, 2014 9:02 a.m. ET
Samsung agreed to start using a new ultra-thin Corning Gorilla Glass in its newest-generation smartphone, the Galaxy Alpha. The glass, at just 0.4 millimeters thick, is the fourth-generation Gorilla Glass offered by Corning, bringing the total size of the Alpha to 7 mm. Corning says the new glass is the most damage-resistant cover glass in its pipeline, capable of dramatically improving screen protection when devices are dropped. The Alpha was initially announced in August with Corning's third-generation Gorilla Glass. Strong and thin screens have become an increasingly important feature for smartphone manufacturers. Consumers were disappointed when Apple bypassed GT Advanced Technologies' ultra-tough Sapphire glass in its new iPhone 6 this past September due to a production disagreement. Despite a broader selloff in the tech sector, shares of Samsung were up 2.5% recently. Those of Corning fell 1.7% premarket.
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| From: Asymmetric | 12/17/2014 12:13:13 PM | | | | | | The pioneering tech company you've probably never heard of
John Lynch / The Independent / Published 15/12/2014
independent.ie
Believe me, it's hard to be far away from the company we are perusing today. The company is called Corning and if you like to watch the telly, turn on the internet, cook a casserole, drive a car or indulge your compulsive interest in the revelations from the Hubble telescope, then Corning has already had a big bearing on your life.
Based in Corning, New York, and founded in 1851, the company's influence on technology began when it was asked to produce the glass envelope for Thomas Edison's light bulb. It has evolved into a global leader in specialised glass, ceramic and optical physics.
One would imagine that a company so ubiquitous would be tripping off every investors' tongue. The fact that this is not the case with Corning may be due tothe fact that its bewildering volume of sales are transacted with only a handful of customers. So, astute readers will conclude, it must have something to do with the mobile phone revolution or with the motor trade. To this I can only respond, well spotted!
Though around for a century and a half, the US firm now operates in five business areas; display technology, Corning optical communications, environment technology, specialty materials and life sciences. It has 70 plants in 15 countries employing 28,000 and has been behind innovations like thinner TVs and monitors. It also developed 'Lotus glass' for high performance portable devices such as smartphones.
The company is the largest LCD glass provider in the world; as a result its display technology business represents 32pc of Corning group sales last year and accounted for net income of $1.2bn. Four customers were responsible for 94pc of sales.
One of Corning's great inventions was optical fibre, an extraordinary product that's pound-for-pound stronger than steel, lighter than cotton, as thin as human hair and as flexible as silk.
Having first produced the optical fibre, it has built a large business in optical-based solutions for wireless networks, data centres and, of course, personal devices.
Another breakthrough for Corning was the development of an economic high performance ceramic that is the standard for catalytic converters in cars.
The company developed a ceramic solution, reducing car emissions by 99pc. Together with filter products for diesel and petrol applications, this forms the basis for Corning's environmental technology business. The business represents 12pc of Corning sales and while competitive, Corning's market position is stable, only three customers account for 87pc of sales.
Its specialised material business provides over 150 formulations for glass, ceramic glass and crystals with a variety of markets including aerospace, astronomy, ophthalmic and communications. It recently launched damage- resistant thin glass to protect screen displays. This business accounts for 15pc of sales, three customers' accounts for half its sales.
Corning life science business is a manufacturer and supplier of scientific lab equipment including vessels and surfaces used for microbiology, chemistry and bio-processing. Revenue from this business is $1bn but a recent purchase is expected to boost revenue and earning.
Sales last year were $8bn and group net income $2bn, up 20pc. Higher sales in optical and life science were offset by declines in display, environmental, technology and specialised materials. In response to global uncertainties, it implemented cost reductions and initiated a share buy-back scheme of $2bn. While investors are pleased with the increases in dividends, they still have some worries. Depending on so few customers (10 large clients provide 50pc of sales revenue) is the stuff of boardroom nightmares.
On the positive side, Corning is valued at $27bn, with a modest price earnings multiple of 12, a healthy financial position and a strong cash flow.
Its shares, trading in the low $20s, are up 35pc on the year and are worth watching. |
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| From: Asymmetric | 12/26/2014 12:47:48 PM | | | | | | Chemical-Sensing Displays and Other Surprising Uses of Glass
An inside look at Corning’s labs suggests what’s next for the inventor of Gorilla Glass.
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By Kevin Bullis / MIT Technology Review on December 17, 2014
technologyreview.com
Someday your smartphone might be able to help you in a new way when you’re traveling: by telling you whether the water is safe to drink.
Although a water app isn’t close yet, researchers at Corning and elsewhere recently discovered that they could use Gorilla Glass, the toughened glass made by Corning that’s commonly used on smartphone screens, to make extremely sensitive chemical and biological sensors. It could detect, say, traces of sarin gas in the air or specific pathogens in water.
The sensors are just one project I learned about during a visit to Corning’s R&D labs in upstate New York. In the last few decades, Corning’s advances in glass-making have led to technologies such as fiber optics and flat-panel displays. Now, thanks to Gorilla Glass, it’s associated with the latest smartphones. But despite the remarkable success of that product, it is keen to catch the next high-tech boom.
Corning spends about 8 percent of its sales on R&D—which will amount to about $800 million this year. It’s a hedge against the very real possibility that one of its businesses could go dark—as has happened in the past. Between 2000 and 2002, Corning lost more than half of its revenue when its fiber-optics business collapsed with much of the rest of the telecom market. Its stock plummeted from $113 to just over $1. This year, it got another scare when one of its largest customers, Apple, came close to replacing Gorilla Glass in iPhones with sapphire (see “Why Apple Failed to Make Sapphire Phones”).
Displays, in one way or another, account for about half of Corning’s revenue, with roughly a third of that coming from Gorilla Glass. To expand this market and withstand challenges from other materials, Corning is trying to add capabilities to Gorilla Glass, such as the sensor application. And it’s looking for new markets for Gorilla Glass beyond displays.
The ability to turn your phone into a biological and chemical sensor is one of the earliest-stage projects in the lab. Researchers at Corning and Polytechnique Montreal discovered that they could make very high quality waveguides, which confine and direct light, in Gorilla Glass. The researchers were able to make these waveguides very near to the surface, which is essential for sensors. Doing so in ordinary glass would break it. Making the waveguide involves focusing a beam of intense laser light near the surface of the glass, then tracing it along the glass, which locally changes its optical properties.
To make a sensor, the researchers make a waveguide that splits into two identical pathways for light. Then the paths converge, and the light from both paths meet up. One path serves as the sensing path, and the other as a reference. Even a tiny change to the light in the sensing path—such as its intensity—can be detected by observing how the light from the two paths interacts when they meet, producing distinct patterns.
The researchers demonstrated a simple sensor that detects changes in temperature. Heating up the sensing path changes its shape, which changes the properties of the light passing through it. Because the waveguide is so close to the surface, part of the light actually extends out of the glass, and anything placed on the surface of the glass will interact with part of the light. This means that to make a chemical or biological sensor, you could prepare the surface of the glass so that a specific target will bind to it. For example, you might treat it with antibodies that latch onto E. coli. or other contaminants; detecting their presence would be as simple as putting a drop of water on the phone.
The waveguides are microscopically thin, and therefore invisible, so they wouldn’t obscure a display. And because they’re quite small, sensors for several different biological or chemical targets could be incorporated into a smartphone.
Corning researchers have also discovered that Gorilla Glass has useful acoustic properties. The way it vibrates is different than conventional glass—it damps sound waves. The simplest application is noise insulation—it blocks sound better than ordinary glass.
But the same acoustic properties could also turn displays into speakers. I saw such a prototype in one of Corning’s labs. A wire in the display attaches to a small actuator that vibrates the glass to produce sound waves. Because of the way the waves propagate through the glass, they can be more precisely controlled than with ordinary glass, allowing for higher quality sound reproduction.
In another lab, researchers showed off a seemingly ordinary window. Then, with a flip of a switch on a circuit board, it turned into a display—one showing an old Coke commercial—and I could only barely make out what was behind the image. When the ad was over, I could see through the display again. Corning was particularly secretive about how it managed to make this technology work.
The most uncanny thing I saw was a Slinky-like glass toy. It’s made of thin Gorilla Glass cut in a spiral shape with a new laser manufacturing tool. As with a Slinky, if you hold one part and let go of the rest, it extends toward the floor. Ordinary glass would just shatter, but because it’s tougher, this glass springs back like plastic. The key to having glass this flexible is making it thin.
Corning recently developed Willow Glass, which is about 100 micrometers thick, one-fourth the thickness of the Gorilla Glass normally used for displays. It can be shipped to customers in rolls, making it easier and cheaper to use in manufacturing. Potential customers are still evaluating how to use it; one likely application is as a component inside displays. But already, an even more flexible kind of glass is in development, says Corning’s chief technology officer, David Morse. It can fold around the edge of something as thin as a reporter’s notebook, and do so millions of times without breaking. It could be important in future foldable electronic devices.
Founded in 1851, Corning survived in the past because of its ability to keep reinventing the possibilities of glass. At about the same time that the market for fiber optics collapsed, its business selling glass for cathode-ray-tube TVs also took a steep dive. It was saved by a process it had invented for making the high quality glass needed for the transistors that control pixels in LCD displays—the very display technology that was destroying its cathode-ray business. A few years later, the company got a call from Steve Jobs, who needed tough glass for the first iPhone. Corning just happened to have a technology sitting on the shelf—the toughened glass that came to be called Gorilla Glass. Corning hopes to be ready for the next call. |
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| From: Asymmetric | 12/26/2014 12:54:41 PM | | | | | | Corning Watch: Corning Inc. rewards shareholders
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LARRY WILSON, Correspondent Elmira Star Gazette 10:56 a.m. EST December 10, 2014
stargazette.com
There was a time when Corning Inc. scoffed at dividends.
The company pointed out that most of its stockholders were pension funds, insurance companies or mutual funds. These institutional investors didn’t care about dividends, the Fortune 500 company said.
Instead, they wanted growth — in sales, profits and stock price.
In the early 2000s, as Corning Inc. slipped into one of the most challenging financial periods of its history, dividends dwindled.
Corning paid a quarterly dividend of 18 cents per share on June 1, 2000. As the optical communications business collapsed, so did the dividend of the Twin Tiers’ largest employer. It was first slashed by two-thirds, falling to 6 cents per share.
By July 2007 it had fallen to 5 cents per share, where it stayed until October 2011, when it rose to 7.5 cents.
So for most of the 2000s, the company stock price was depressed by the communications market collapse or the nationwide recession that began in 2008.
Investors, whether institutional or individual, got little in the way of price appreciation, little in the way of dividends and little in the way of growth. What exactly was the point of owning Corning Inc. stock?
That was the question that individual investors began to ask at annual gatherings of stockholders — sometimes in a whisper, sometimes in a shout.
The increase in the dividend to 7.5 cents a share in 2011 turned out to be a tipping point. Realizing that shareholders had pretty much been left out of any gains that Corning Inc. had made, the company began trying to make up for lost time.
It launched stock buyback programs and dividend increases in an effort to reward investors for their loyalty. By 2013, the dividend had risen to 10 cents per share.
From 2011 through early 2014, Corning repurchased $5.5 billion worth of its common stock. Much of that stock was issued in the early 2000s to raise money when the company’s income fell dramatically.
The new stock, however, diluted the value of Corning’s shares for long-term stockholders.
Now, Corning is at it again. It recently announced that the quarterly dividend will rise to 12 cents per share in the first quarter of next year and that it will buy back another $1.5 billion of its common stock by the end of 2016.
Corning Inc. is hoping the stock buybacks will help stabilize or drive up the price of its stock.
There is no sign that the new round of dividend increases and stock buybacks will be the last.
Wendell Weeks, company chairman and president, said improvements in operating performance could lead to bigger dividends and more share repurchases. |
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| From: Asymmetric | 12/26/2014 12:58:26 PM | | | | | | Corning Watch: Growing Corning Inc. with acquisitions
LARRY WILSON, Correspondent 10:06 a.m. EST December 4, 2014
Corning Inc., the region’s largest employer, is growing with a series of acquisitions.(Photo: SIMON WHEELER / STAFF PHOTO)
There are a number of ways to expand a corporation like Corning Inc.
You can buy products you’ve never made before along with the technology to manufacture them. That was the basic strategy the Twin Tiers’ largest employer used in the 1990s to build huge businesses in medical blood testing and pharmaceutical development.
After proving to be more trouble than they were worth — in part because of complex government regulations — both businesses were dumped and Corning went back to its roots in glass.
Another way to expand is to grow sales of existing products without acquisitions. Corning Inc. has tried this method with products such as liquid crystal display glass, Gorilla Glass and optical fiber and cable.
Such “organic” growth is usually slow, except when a product gets hot for a short period of time. That has happened with several Corning products, all of which eventually cooled to more realistic levels. Among them: optical fiber, display glass and Gorilla Glass.
A third way to expand a corporation is to acquire businesses already related to successful products.
This seems to be the route that the Fortune 500 company has chosen.
Its largest recent acquisition came in the display glass business earlier this year. Corning bought out the interest of its Korean partner in Samsung Corning Precision Glass. That gave Corning Inc. a better foothold in Asia, a potentially high growth area for computer and television displays.
The $2.3 billion acquisition, which Corning financed by issuing new shares of preferred stock to Samsung, closed in January. It is expected to help drive Corning revenues to record levels this year.
On the heels of the Samsung display glass deal, Corning announced on Dec. 2 it will buy Samsung’s optical fiber business. The terms of the sale were not disclosed, but it is significantly smaller than the display glass deal and will produce significantly less revenue.
Its advantages are that it gives Corning increased access to the optical fiber markets in Korea and China, both of which have significant growth potential.
The two deals with Samsung followed Corning Life Science’s acquisition in 2012 of the majority of the Discovery Labware business of Becton Dickinson and Co.
The deal added new plastic consumable labware brands and other products to Corning’s existing portfolio.
The three deals done since 2012 in life sciences, display glass and optical fiber show that Corning Inc. has chosen augmenting existing product lines as its major strategy for growth. It will be a few years before the success of that effort can be accurately measured. |
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| From: Asymmetric | 1/11/2015 8:52:56 PM | | | | | | Growth Is the Gorilla in Corning’s Room
After a Strong Year, Corning’s Newest Innovations Will Be Needed to Keep Up Growth
By Dan Gallagher / WSJ - Heard on the Street Updated Jan. 11, 2015
Corning is unlikely to match 2014’s heady revenue growth this year. Associated Press
In a world of touch screens, germs may give Corning a shot at a new opportunity.
That is a good thing for the maker of specialty-glass products, which still makes most of its money from the volatile TV-display business. At last week’s Consumer Electronics Show, Corning showed off a new product called Iris Glass that is designed to reduce the thickness of a high-definition TV to something on par with today’s smartphones.
It also added an antimicrobial feature to its popular Gorilla Glass product. This uses ionic silver to fight contamination on the surface of the screen, or more simply, germs. Corning announced at CES that Clover Mobile will use the product in its point-of-sale terminals at retailers.
While early in their life cycle, these developments are important. Corning needs to stay at technology’s cutting edge as demand for touch screens and displays grows.
Corning has wrapped a strong year, thanks to big sales in its display unit. Analysts project total revenue grew 29% in 2014, its strongest year of growth since 2000.
Not that it is likely to maintain that pace. Current estimates have the company’s display-glass business staying flat in 2015, so revenue growth may have to rely on Corning’s other segments, including Gorilla Glass. And this business is also fickle, as more smartphone sales have shifted to lower-end devices that can’t afford premium components.
Corning reports year-end results later this month. The stock is up more than 24% since its last quarterly report and its forward price/earnings multiple is at just an 8% discount to that of the S&P 500. That is among its lowest discounts over the past five years.
To justify this, Corning will have to show that its latest innovations can actually drive further growth. |
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| From: Sidney Street | 1/15/2015 1:34:45 PM | | | | | | From SA:
JPMorgan upgrades Corning, cites 4K TVs and Iris Glass
Jan 15 2015, 10:57 ET | About: Corning Inc. (GLW) | By: Eric Jhonsa, SA News Editor 
JPMorgan's Rod Hall has upgraded Corning ( GLW +0.8%) to Overweight, and hiked his target by $5 to $26. His move comes a month after Citi's upgrade, and ahead of Corning's Jan. 27 Q4 report.Hall cites expectations of strong 4K/UHD TV growth - one of the factors behind Corning's Dec. 9 guidance hike - and the potential for the company's recently-launched Iris Glass (a light-guide plate solution for edge-lit TV sets) to boost 2016 EPS by as much as 6%.Corning is close to its 52-week high of $23.89, and trades for 15x 2015E EPS. The 2015 revenue growth consensus is at 2.2%. |
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| From: Asymmetric | 2/5/2015 3:25:01 AM | | | | | | Corning Inc. nears $10B sales goal
Jeff Murray, jmurray@stargazette.com | @SGJeffMurray 4:15 p.m. EST January 27, 2015
Corning Inc. businesses performed well last year, according to numbers released by the company Tuesday.
Corning Inc. saw growth across the company in the fourth quarter and throughout 2014, according to sales and earnings figures released Tuesday.
Net sales were up 23 percent in the fourth quarter and net income was up 135 percent, according to Corning Inc.
For the entire year, net sales were up 24 percent and net income grew by 26 percent.
Company officials were most excited about sales numbers. Computed using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP, those sales totaled $9.7 billion.
Using figures that are adjusted to exclude the impact of changes in Japanese yen and Korean won foreign exchange rates, as well as other items that do not reflect ongoing operations of the company, that number is $10.2 billion.
Both numbers are milestones for Corning Inc.
"Our GAAP sales are still a record. We've never been close to $10 billion before," said Tony Tripeny, Corning Inc. vice president and corporate controller.
"We had a great fourth quarter. We ended up finishing with a really strong year. Every quarter was better than the comparable quarter of 2013. We feel this sets us up really well for 2015."
Earnings per share were 70 cents in the fourth quarter and $1.73 over the full year.
Using the adjusted numbers, Corning Inc. provided sales and earning figures for its major businesses:
•Display technologies: Sales were $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter, up 69 percent over 2013. Sales for the year were $4.4 billion, up 63 percent, driven by Corning Precision Materials sales.
•Optical communications: Fourth-quarter sales were $676 million, up 12 percent. Overall annual sales were nearly $2.7 billion, up 14 percent.
•Environmental technologies: Fourth-quarter sales were $250 million, up 5 percent. Annual sales were up 19 percent, driven by higher sales of heavy-duty diesel products.
•Specialty materials: Sales were $319 million in the fourth quarter, up 12 percent. Annual sales were up 3 percent.
•Life sciences: Fourth-quarter sales of $215 million were up 2 percent from a year ago. Sales were up slightly over the full year.
"You'll see a lot more (improvement). We haven't really seen the full benefit of Gorilla Glass 4 yet," said Dan Collins, Corning Inc. vice president of corporate communications.
Gorilla Glass 4, developed at Sullivan Park research facility, was launched in November.
The strong operating and financial performance will mean stability for the 5,200 Corning Inc. employees who work in the region, Tripeny said.
Independent analysts who follow Corning Inc. were also impressed by the company's 2014 performance.
"It's very good news. It more than met our expectations," said Angelo Zino, senior industry analyst with S & P Capital IQ in New York City. "Looking to the first quarter, the glass business is very healthy. Overall these are very good results. I think the outlook is pretty good."
Corning Inc. stock closed at $24.73 on Tuesday, up 82 cents, or 3.4 percent. |
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