Fourth-quarter sales in Corning’s Display Technologies sector, wh...
Fourth-quarter sales in Corning’s Display Technologies sector, which includes LCD glass, rose 5% from the 3rd quarter to $311 million on a more favorable yen-dollar exchange rate, stable pricing and 2% volume growth, CEO James Houghton told analysts in…
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a conference call Wed. Earnings in the quarter from the Samsung Corning Precision Glass (SCPG) joint venture rose to $73 million, from $68 million in the 3rd quarter, he said. Net income in the display segment rose 6% to $151 million. For the year, display operations posted record sales exceeding $1.1 billion, an increase of 86% from 2003 sales, Houghton said. Citing preliminary estimates gleaned from “an aggregate” of industry sources, Houghton said there was very strong 4th-quarter demand in factory shipments of notebook PCs, LCD PC monitors and LCD TVs. For the year, LCD TV shipments more than doubled to 9.2 million, and LCD TV penetration grew to 5% at the end of 2004 from 3% at the end of 2003, he said. Excess industry inventory “was by and large digested by the end of the year,” Houghton said. He attributed the inventory improvement to aggressive pricing declines by LCD panel makers and retailers. For example, he said, average panel prices for 17” LCD monitors fell by about $60 at the factory level in Aug.-Oct., and similar price reductions followed suit at retail in Oct.-Dec. Of Corning’s overall LCD glass product mix at the end of 2004, “Gen-5” and larger glass accounted for almost 65% of the company’s total “family” volume, including that of SCPG, Houghton said. That proportion was up significantly from 40% at the start of 2004, he said. A small portion of the 2004 volume was in “Gen-7” glass, he said. Corning announced recently that SCPG has begun shipping “significant quantities” of Gen-7 glass, Houghton said.