Corning Stock

Corning Incorporated (Corning) provides high-performance glass for notebook computers, flat panel desktop monitors, display televisions, and other information display applications; carrier network and enterprise network products for the telecommunications industry; ceramic substrates for gasoline and diesel engines in automotive and heavy-duty vehicle markets; laboratory products for the scientific community and specialized polymer products for biotechnology applications; advanced optical materials for the semiconductor industry and the scientific community; and polycrystalline silicon products and other technologies.

Corning has combined its unparalleled expertise in glass science, ceramic science and optical physics with deep manufacturing and engineering capabilities to develop category-defining products that transform industries and enhance people’s lives. The company’s materials science and manufacturing expertise, boundless curiosity and commitment to purposeful invention place it at the center of the way the world works, learns and lives. In addition, the company’s sustained investment in research, development and engineering capabilities means it is always ready to solve the toughest challenges alongside its customers.

The company’s capabilities are versatile and synergistic, allowing Corning to evolve to meet changing market needs, while also helping customers capture new opportunities in dynamic industries. Corning’s markets include optical communications, mobile consumer electronics, display, automotive, solar, semiconductor and life sciences. Corning’s industry-leading products include damage-resistant cover glass for mobile devices; precision glass for advanced displays; optical fiber and cable, wireless technologies and connectivity solutions for state-of-the-art communications networks; trusted products to accelerate drug discovery and delivery; and clean-air technologies for cars and trucks.

Segments

Corning operates through five segments: Optical Communications, Display Technologies, Specialty Materials, Environmental Technologies and Life Sciences.

Optical Communications

The Optical Communications segment is divided into two main product groupings – carrier network and enterprise network. The carrier network group consists primarily of products and solutions for optical-based communications infrastructure for services, such as video, data and voice communications. The enterprise network group consists primarily of optical-based communication networks sold to businesses, governments and individuals for their own use.

The company’s carrier network product portfolio encompasses an array of optical fiber products, including Vascade optical fibers for use in submarine networks; LEAF optical fiber for long-haul, regional and metropolitan networks; SMF-28 ULL and TXF fiber for more scalable long-haul and regional networks; SMF-28e+ single-mode optical fiber providing additional transmission wavelengths in metropolitan and access networks and ClearCurve ultra-bendable single-mode fiber for use in multiple-dwelling units and fiber-to-the-home applications. For high performance across the range of long-haul, metro, access and fiber-to-the-home network applications, SMF-28 Ultra and SMF-28 Contour fibers deliver industry-leading attenuation, compatibility and improved macrobend performance in one fiber. A portion of the company’s optical fiber is sold directly to end users and third-party cablers globally. The company’s remaining fiber production is cabled internally and sold to end users as either bulk cable or as part of an integrated optical solution. The company’s cable products, including the RocketRibbon and miniXtend portfolios, support various outdoor, indoor/outdoor and indoor applications and include a broad range of loose tube, ribbon and drop cable designs with flame-retardant versions available for indoor and indoor/outdoor use including 5G networks.

In addition to optical fiber and cable, the company’s carrier network product portfolio also includes hardware and equipment products, including cable assemblies, fiber-optic hardware, fiber-optic connectors, optical components and couplers, closures, network interface devices and other accessories. These products may be sold as individual components or as part of integrated optical connectivity solutions designed for various carrier network applications. Examples of these solutions include its Evolv platform, which provides pre-connectorized solutions for deploying fiber-to-the-home and 5G networks; and the Centrix platform, which provides a fiber management system with industry-leading density and innovative jumper routing that can be deployed in a wide variety of carrier switching centers.

In addition to its optical-based portfolio, the company’s carrier network portfolio also contains select copper-based products, including subscriber demarcation, connection and protection devices, xDSL (different variations of digital subscriber lines) passive solutions and outside plant enclosures.

The company’s enterprise network portfolio leverages optical fiber products, including ClearCurve ultra-bendable multimode fiber for private and hyperscale data centers and other enterprise network applications.

The company’s hardware and equipment for enterprise network applications include cable assemblies, fiber-optic hardware, fiber-optic connectors, optical components and couplers, closures and other accessories. These products may be sold as individual components or as part of integrated optical connectivity solutions designed for various network applications, including hyperscale data centers. Examples of enterprise network solutions include the EDGE platform, which provides high-density pre-connectorized cabling solutions for data center applications, supporting a path to speeds of 400G and beyond and Everon Network Solutions, which provide next-generation cellular connectivity products for interior spaces of all sizes.

Cabling operations are in North Carolina, Poland and smaller regional locations. The company’s manufacturing operations for hardware and equipment products are in Texas, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Poland and China.

The Optical Communications segment represented 30% of Corning’s total segment net sales in 2023.

Display Technologies

The Display Technologies segment manufactures glass substrates for flat panel displays, including liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) that are used primarily in televisions, notebook computers, desktop monitors, tablets and handheld devices. This segment develops, manufactures and supplies high quality glass substrates using technology expertise and a proprietary fusion manufacturing process, which the company invented and is the cornerstone of its technology leadership in the display glass industry. The company’s highly automated process yields glass substrates with a pristine surface and excellent thermal stability and dimensional uniformity – essential attributes in the production of large, high-performance display panels.

The company recognized as a world leader in precision glass innovations that enable its customers to produce larger, thinner, more flexible and higher-resolution displays. Some of the product innovations the company has launched over the past ten years utilizing its world-class processes and capabilities include the following:

Corning EAGLE XG Slim Glass, Corning’s flagship display glass product enabling thinner televisions and monitors with larger-sized screens; it is trusted by the world’s leading panel makers for LCD displays with more than 30 billion square feet sold;

Corning Astra Glass, an innovative glass solution designed to meet the emerging needs for high-resolution displays. This glass has been optimized for oxide thin-film transistor (TFT) backplanes, but enables a range of high-resolution applications from the top end of amorphous silicon (s-Si) TFT backplanes through low temperature poly-silicon (LTPS) backplanes, as well as other applications requiring precision glass;

Corning Lotus NXT Glass, a high-performance display glass designed to withstand the harshest panel manufacturing process enabling highest-resolution displays in smaller and flexible devices; and

The world’s first Gen 10 and Gen 10.5 glass substrate sizes in support of improved efficiency in manufacturing large-sized displays.

The Display Technologies segment represented 26% of Corning’s total segment net sales in 2023.

Specialty Materials

The Specialty Materials segment manufactures products that provide more than 150 material formulations for glass, glass ceramics and crystals, as well as precision metrology instruments and software to meet requirements for unique customer needs. Consequently, this segment operates in a wide variety of commercial and industrial markets including materials optimized for mobile consumer electronics, semiconductor equipment optics and consumables, aerospace and defense optics, radiation shielding products, sunglasses and telecommunications components.

The company’s highly durable glass, known as Corning Gorilla Glass, is a chemically strengthened thin glass designed specifically to function as a cover, or back-enclosure glass, for mobile consumer electronic devices, such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops and smartwatches. Elegant and lightweight, Corning Gorilla Glass is durable enough to resist many real-world events that commonly cause wear or scratch damage and glass failure, while providing optical clarity, touch sensitivity and RF transparency, thus enabling exciting new applications in technology and design. In 2022, Corning unveiled its newest glass innovation, Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2, which delivers improved cover glass drop performance on rough surfaces like concrete, while preserving the scratch resistance of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. Corning Gorilla Glass is manufactured in the United States (U.S.), South Korea and Taiwan.

The company collaborated with Apple to deliver durable glass with infused color for the back of Apple's iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus devices. These devices also feature Ceramic Shield, a highly transparent, color-free glass-ceramic, which offers unparalleled durability and toughness for smartphones.

The company’s semiconductor optics include high-performance optical materials, including Corning HPFS Fused Silica and Corning ULE Ultra-Low Expansion Glass, optical-based metrology instruments and custom optical assemblies for applications in the global semiconductor industry. The company’s semiconductor optics products are manufactured in New York.

The company also manufactures ultra-flat, ultra-thin glass wafers and substrates for a variety of applications including augmented reality, advanced semiconductor packaging, 3D sensing and more. These products are manufactured in New York, France and China.

Other specialty glass products include tinted sunglasses and radiation shielding products that are made in France.

Patent protection is important to the segment’s operations. The segment has a growing portfolio of patents relating to its products, technologies and manufacturing processes. Brand recognition and loyalty, through well-known trademarks, are important to the segment.

The Specialty Materials segment represented 14% of Corning’s total segment net sales in 2023.

Environmental Technologies

The Environmental Technologies segment manufactures ceramic substrates and filter products for emissions control in mobile applications around the world. The company developed an economical, high-performance cellular ceramic substrate that is the standard for catalytic converters in vehicles worldwide. As global emissions control regulations tighten, the company has continued to develop more effective and durable ceramic substrate and filter products for gasoline and diesel applications, most recently launching low-mass Corning FLORA substrates and Corning DuraTrap GC gasoline particulate filters. The company manufactures substrate and filter products in New York, Virginia, China and Germany. The company sells its ceramic substrate and filter products worldwide to catalyzers and manufacturers of emission control systems who then sell to automotive and diesel vehicle or engine manufacturers. Although most sales are made to the emission control systems manufacturers, the use of the company’s substrates and filters is generally required by the specifications of the automotive and diesel vehicle or engine manufacturers.

Patent protection is important to the segment’s operations. The segment has an extensive portfolio of patents relating to its products, technologies and manufacturing processes. The company is licensed to use certain patents owned by others, which are also considered important to the segment’s operations.

The Environmental Technologies segment represented 13% of Corning’s total segment net sales in 2023.

Life Sciences

As a leading developer, manufacturer and global supplier of laboratory products for over 105 years, the Life Sciences segment works with researchers and drug manufacturers seeking to drive innovation, increase efficiencies, reduce costs and compress timelines. Using unique expertise in the fields of materials science, polymer surface science, cell culture and cell biology, the segment provides innovative solutions that improve productivity and enable breakthrough research for traditional small molecule, or chemical, drugs, biologics, vaccines and emerging cell and gene therapies.

Life Sciences products include consumables, such as plastic vessels, liquid handling plastics, specialty surfaces, cell culture media and serum, as well as general labware, glassware and equipment. These products are used for drug discovery research and development, compound screening, diagnostics, advanced cell culture research, genomics applications and mass production of cells for clinical trials and bioproduction.

The company sells life sciences products under the Corning, Falcon, PYREX and Axygen brands. The products are marketed globally, primarily through distributors, to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, contract manufacturing organizations, central testing labs, academic institutions, hospitals, government entities and other facilities. The company manufactures these products in California, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Utah, Virginia, China, France, Mexico, Brazil and Poland.

Patent protection is important to the segment’s operations. The segment has a growing portfolio of patents relating to its products, technologies and manufacturing processes. Brand recognition and loyalty, through well-known trademarks, are important to the segment.

The Life Sciences segment represented 7% of Corning’s total segment net sales in 2023.

Hemlock and Emerging Growth Businesses

This group primarily consists of the results of Hemlock Semiconductor Group (HSG). HSG is a leading provider of high-purity polysilicon products for the solar power and electronics industries. HSG operates in the solar power market, as polysilicon is needed in the manufacturing process to produce sustainable solar power cell, panels and arrays, and the electronics markets, as polysilicon is used to create fabricated wafers and integrated circuit chips used by leading semiconductor manufacturers.

Hemlock and Emerging Growth Businesses also includes the company’s pharmaceutical technologies business, which produces high-quality pharmaceutical glass tubing and vials to meet the rigorous needs of the pharmaceutical industry; its automotive glass solutions business, which enhances vehicle exteriors and interiors with innovations that enable lightweight, damage-resistant windows and displays; as well as other businesses and certain corporate investments.

Hemlock and Emerging Growth Businesses represented 10% of Corning’s total segment net sales in 2023.

Competition

Optical Communications: The company’s principal competitors include CommScope Holding Company, Inc. and Prysmian Group S.p.A.

Display Technologies: The company’s principal competitors include AGC Inc. and Nippon Electric Glass Co., Ltd.

Specialty Materials: The company’s principal competitors include Schott AG, AGC Inc., Nippon Electric Glass Co., Ltd. and Heraeus.

Environmental Technologies: The company’s principal competitors include NGK Insulators, Ltd. and Ibiden Co., Ltd.

Life Sciences: The company’s principal competitors include Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Avantor, Inc., Greiner AG, Eppendorf SE, Sarstedt AG & Co. KG and Danaher Corporation.

Patents and Trademarks

In 2023, the company was granted about 520 patents in the U.S. and over 1,510 patents in countries outside the U.S. As of December 31, 2023, the company owned about 12,975 unexpired patents in various countries, of which about 4,660 were U.S. patents. Between 2024 and 2026, approximately 730, or 6%, of these worldwide patents will expire, while at the same time the company intends to seek patents protecting its newer innovations. Worldwide, the company has about 8,370 patent applications in process, with about 2,130 in process in the U.S. The company’s principal trademarks include the following: Axygen, Celcor, ClearCurve, Corning, DuraTrap, Eagle XG, Edge8, Everon, Evolv, Falcon, Gorilla, Guardiant, HPFS, Leaf, PYREX, RocketRibbon, SMF-28e, Steuben, UniCam, Valor, Velocity, Victus and Viridian.

Research and Development Costs

The company’s research and development costs totaled $0.9 billion for the year ended December 31, 2023.

History

The company was founded in 1851. It was incorporated in the state of New York in 1936. The company was formerly known as Corning Glass Works and changed its name to Corning Incorporated in 1989.