Corning 3Q Profit Climbs 41 Percent

Earnings climbed to $617 million, or 38 cents a share, in July-September period compared with $438 million, or 27 cents a share, in last year's third quarter.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected net profit of 37 cents a share. Corning had predicted earnings in a range of 34 cents to 37 cents per share.

Sales rose 21 percent to $1.55 billion from $1.28 billion, meeting analysts' expectations. Corning had forecast third-quarter revenue between $1.53 billion and $1.58 billion.

The company said it expects fourth-quarter profit in a range of 36 cents to 38 cents a share, before special items. Revenue is forecast between $1.5 billion and $1.55 billion.

Analysts predict fourth-quarter earnings of 39 cents per share on sales of $1.62 billion.

Sales in its telecommunications unit rose 4 percent to $472 million, driven by increased demand for fiber-to-the-premises products and private network projects. Environmental technologies sales rose 29 percent to $198 million, fueled by its pollution-filter business.

Its display technologies sales rose 39 percent to $705 million as price declines fell in line with the company's new pricing strategy. The business, Corning's biggest, was hit early last year by an inventory buildup among suppliers.

Analyst Paul Gagnon of DisplaySearch, a market research firm based in Austin, Texas, expects 95 million LCD-TVs will be shipped worldwide in 2008, up from an estimated 73 million this year. Of those, shipments in North America could grow to 28.7 million in 2008 from 21.9 million in 2007, he said.

"The market for LCD-TVs in North America still looks healthy -- at this point demand is exceeding supply," Gagnon said. "That should be the case for this year and into next year simply because there hasn't been as much capacity expansion as in years past."