Gorilla Glass Vendor Posts Lackluster Finances for Q2

Corning has come a long way over the past couple of years, earning recognition for its LCD glass substrates and, one of our personal favorites, the Gorilla Glass / Gorilla Glass 2 panels.

The company didn't actually grow financially during the second quarter of 2012, having actually slid 1% sequentially in terms of revenue, and 5% year over year. That doesn't make the $1.9 billion / 1.54 billion Euro any less of a massive amount of money though.

In the Display Technologies business, wholly-owned operations saw LCD glass volume increase by mid-single digits year over year, but they declined by mid-single digits on a sequential basis.

Meanwhile, the joint venture Samsung Corning Precision Materials increased sequentially (mid-single digits) and fell on-year by low double digits.

The only divisions that increased both sequentially and on-year were telecommunications and specialty materials (Gorilla Glass).

All in all, the net income ended up at $462 million / 375 million Euro, the same level as in the previous quarter.

"We are pleased with the progress we have made against the goals we outlined in February for stabilizing our Display Technologies segment earnings and growing our other businesses," James B. Flaws, vice chairman and chief financial officer, said.

"We are moving forward on new opportunities in high performance displays, and our recently formed OLED equity venture in Korea. We are excited about the possibilities for Corning Willow Glass, an ultra-slim flexible glass that may enable some very unique opportunities for us."

As one can see, Corning is actually in high spirits, even though it does have concerns regarding Europe's and China's economies.

"We are concerned about the continuing economic challenges in Europe and China's decelerating GDP growth. We have seen signs that the unsettled global economy impacted some of our businesses in the past quarter," Weeks said.

"We are alert to the fact that the economic woes may grow, and consumers may reduce their spending, which could impact our customers. If we see further weakness, we will respond with appropriate actions," Weeks continued.