UPDATE: Corning Shares Rise On Upbeat Q4 Results

Shares of

gained around 2% in pre-market trading after the company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter results. The Corning, New York-based company reported a quarterly profit of $988 million, or $0.70 per share, versus a year-ago profit of $421 million, or $0.30 per share. Its revenue climbed 23% to $2.4 billion. Excluding special items, Corning's core earnings rose to $0.45 per share from $0.29 per share, while core sales climbed 30% to $2.6 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings of $0.38 per share on revenue of $2.5 billion. Core sales for its specialty-materials segment gained 12% to $319 million in the quarter, while core sales in the display technologies segment surged 69% to $1.1 billion. Optical communications segment core sales rose 12% to $676 million, while environmental technologies segment core sales gained 5% to $250 million. Corning ended the fourth quarter and full year with $6.1 billion in cash and short-term investments. "2014 was one of the strongest years in Corning`s history," Wendell P. Weeks, chairman, chief executive officer and president, remarked. "Our sales exceeded $10 billion* for the first time in the company`s history, with 29% core sales growth, and 22% core earnings improvement from a year ago. We have now produced two full years of quarterly year-over-year earnings growth.” For the first quarter, Corning expects optical communications segment core sales to rise by more than 10% y/y, while it projects specialty materials segment sales to gain by around 10%. Corning expects Q1 LCD glass volume in its display technologies segment to be down slightly on a sequential basis. Corning shares rose 2.05% to $24.40 in pre-market trading.