Corning's profit triples, tops $1B

Corning beat Wall Street's expectations on strong demand for glass used in flat-screen TVs and computers.

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ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) -- Corning Inc. said Tuesday its first-quarter profit more than tripled to exceed $1 billion, beating Wall Street's expectations on soaring demand for glass used in flat-screen televisions and computers.

The specialty glass and ceramics maker also said it expects earnings in the current quarter to beat analyst forecasts.

Its earnings climbed to $1.029 billion, or 64 cents a share, in the January-to-March period, up from $327 million, or 20 cents, a year earlier.

Sales surged 24% to $1.62 billion from $1.307 billion, lifted by a 58% jump in the display technologies unit, its biggest business.

Excluding a non-cash credit of $327 million in an asbestos litigation case, earnings came to 44 cents. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected net profit of 42 cents on sales of $1.594 billion.

Corning (GLW, Fortune 500) had predicted earnings in of 41 to 43 cents a share before special items, and sales ranging from $1.59 billion to $1.62 billion.

Its shares rose 67 cents, or 2.6%, to $26.35 in premarket trading.

The world's largest maker of liquid crystal display glass said its display technologies sales jumped to $829 million from $524 million.

Sales in its telecommunications unit fell 4% to $421 million from $439 million as strong optical fiber volume was offset by a slow start to several customer projects. Environmental technologies sales rose 10% to $197 million from $179 million, fueled by its pollution-filter business.

The company expects profit in the second quarter to reach 47 to 50 cents a share before special items as year-over-year sales jump more than 20% to a range of $1.71 billion to $1.75 billion. Analysts had predicted second-quarter profit of 43 cents on sales of $1.67 billion.

LCD-TVs lead the way. Even while economic conditions have turned gloomier, Corning's outlook has been lifted by robust demand for LCD-TVs.

Analyst Paul Gagnon of DisplaySearch, a market research firm based in Austin, Texas, expects 104.5 million LCD-TVs will be shipped worldwide this year, up 32% from 79.3 million in 2007. In North America, shipments could grow almost 25%, from 24.2 million to 30.2 million this year.

Despite the slowing U.S. economy, "there's still a lot of people who have second and third and even primary rooms that don't have LCD-TVs," Gagnon said. "As consumers start pulling back their spending... they just don't buy as large a TV as they might have had in the past or they might desire to. They just shift their purchase downscale a little bit, but they still buy a TV."