Revenue in the three months ended in December rose 7%, year over year, to $1.9 billion, yielding EPS of 33 cents a share. Analysts had been expecting $1.84 billion and 33 cents.
CEO Wendell Weeks said 2011 had seen the company’s best sales performance in its 161-year history.
But he also remarked that “In the fourth quarter, we experienced significant LCD glass price declines due to a confluence of factors in the display market,” and that falling prices in the solar panel industry, a result of lower demand and the drastic decline in pricing of polysilicon materials, had hurt the profit of its Dow Corning venture.
CFO James Flaws remarked Corning had to cut glass prices and clear inventory to adjust to weakening global demand:
We are working closely with our customers to reduce glass prices to help them with their immediate financial strains. To that end, price declines will be significant in the first quarter of 2012, as they were in last year's fourth quarter. We expect significant double-digit price declines over the cumulative two-quarter period. We are hopeful that our pricing actions, combined with our capacity decisions, will help us get back to more stable price declines in the coming quarters.