Corning Earnings Call Insights: Share Stability and Demand-Driven Declines

Corning Inc (NYSE:GLW) recently reported its fourth quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call.

Share Stability

Mark Sue – RBC Capital Markets: Jim, we understand you’re focused on share stability for Display Glass to better forecast catastrophe and so far so good. What could be significant indicators on pricing changed (for tell) about the market share intentions from your competitors. I asked since every action has a reaction and I’m wondering if rationality may prevail in the industry or do you feel that competitors are still considering what they should do at this point and do external factors such as currency actually imply some share shift in the forthcoming quarters?

James B. Flaws – Vice Chairman and CFO: Mark, I’ll have to let you speak directly to our competition about their intentions. We believe what we’ve seen in quarter one both in terms of how the contracts are working on our share and on more moderate price declines indicates that we believe the industry is moving to more moderate price declines for LCD Glass, so that’s the only initial indicator I can give you. I believe our competition is announcing the results today and next week. So, we look forward to hearing what they have to say about guidance, but that’s our strong belief that we can see moderation and price declines in the LCD business.

Mark Sue – RBC Capital Markets: Then may be if I touched on Gorilla Glass where you’re focusing on moving up more capacity there, Gorilla Glass, which is still highly differentiated. Are we at a point where prices for Gorilla Glass can actually start stabilizing or not decline since it is a premier product that’s going through a lot of premier end markets, such as smartphones and tablets. What should we kind of assume for pricing for Gorilla glass segment for the balance of the year?