On April 29, 2008, Corning (GLW) announced Q1′08 results. Overall sales were up 24% Y/Y to US$1.62 billion. What I’m interested in is the Display Technologies division: Glass volume increased 2% Q/Q and 50% Y/Y. Part of the Display Technologies division is Samsung Corning Precision Glass (SCP) where volume was flat Q/Q but up 46% [...]
Mark Sue, a RBC analyst, upgraded Corning’s stock from “Neutral” to “Buy”. He based this decision on the assumption that “demand for Corning glass is getting stronger due to the popularity, and growing size, of LCD TV screens around the world.”
I am not sure if Mr. Sue has been reading the news lately, but I [...]
Corning announced that it may sell or close its Steuben Glass luxury crystal unit. According to Corning, the Steuben unit, which was founded in 1903, has been unprofitable for a few years. The unit generates revenues of about US$25 million annually and employs 150. The sale or closure of Steuben would allow Corning to concentrate [...]
On February 6, 2008, Corning announced that its BOD has approved a US$453 million investment toward expanding its LCD glass substrate manufacturing capacity in Taichung, Taiwan. The Taichung glass facility currently manufactures Gen. 5 glass and larger substrates, including Gen. 8, using the company’s Eagle XG glass, an environmentally friendly glass that does not have [...]
On February 8, 2008, during its annual investor meeting in New York, Corning introduced a new type of glass geared for touch display applications. The new type of glass is called Gorilla and can withstand daily use and abuse without being scratched. The glass is fusion-formed and does not require any polishing. The Gorilla glass [...]
Instead of using the typical TFT LCD glass substrate, Samsung Electronics displayed a 19″ LCD monitor panel using a soda-lime glass substrate at the FPD International 2007 conference in Yokohama, Japan. The LCD monitor features a pixel format of 1280 x 1024. Normal TFT LCD glass substrates are sodium- and alkali-free. Soda-lime glass is not [...]
DigiTimes posted an informative Q&A session with AFT’s chairman and president, Tetsuji Kakimoto. Kakimoto-san revealed a lot of information that I will succinctly summarize below:
Glass Capacity, Plans, Locations
-AFT can supply G10 glass out of Taiwan.
-Large plants: 4 in Taiwan, 3 in Osaka, Japan, 1 in Korea.
-Large plant capacity: 5 million m2 (5-6x Corning’s plant capacity)
-Small plants: 3 in [...]
Peter F. Volanakis, CEO, stated during Corning’s annual investor relations meeting on February 9 that the total demand for LCD glass will be nearly 2 billion square feet in 2008. LCD TV penetration will reach 33% in 2007 and 45% in 2008 and be fueled by LCD TVs and the general trend toward larger LCD [...]
Corning announced on February 7, that the board of directors approved a capital expenditure plan of US$160 million to expand its G8 LCD glass substrate manufacturing capacity in Shizuoka, Japan. The approved CAPEX will be incurred from now until mid-2008, which would be the timeframe in which expanded G8 production will be increased. This is [...]
There is not much information regarding this but Apple tapped Asahi to develop a special type of glass that is used on the iPhone to enable the phone’s multi-touch feature. I am not sure what makes this Asahi glass so special, but I will guess that it enables the “touch” to be more accurately measured [...]