Corning’s third-quarter net income rose 58% amid torrid demand for fiber-optic materials from the artificial-intelligence buildout, a boom the company expects to lift adjusted earnings in the fourth quarter.Corning shares rose 3.5% in premarket trading.
The maker of specialty glass, ceramics, and optical fiber posted net income of $680 million, or 78 cents a share, up from $430 million, or 50 cents a share, a year earlier.
Core earnings per share, an adjusted figure that strips out exceptional items and one-off costs, came to 91 cents a share, besting the Wall Street peg of 88 cents a share, as per FactSet.
Sales rose 18% to $4.86 billion. Core sales rose 19% to $5.08 billion, surpassing the mean Wall Street target of $5.03 billion.
The company’s optical-communications unit, a major supplier of materials to data-center developers, posted a 44% increase in sales. Sales to generative AI-related customers more than doubled from a year earlier.
Solar-segment sales rose 37%, as U.S. production ramped up, albeit at a slower pace than Corning had anticipated.
Corning is among the key suppliers in the AI infrastructure buildout. The company’s specialized optical fiber is a key component of hyperscale data centers, allowing the company to shift away from reliance on major telecom clients amid stagnating spending in that industry in recent years.
Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, Corning projects core, or adjusted, earnings in a range between 96 cents and $1 a share, ahead of the average analyst target of 93 cents a share. Corning forecasts core sales in a range between $5.2 billion and $5.3 billion, compared with the average Wall Street projection of $5.2 billion.
