Corning reported second-quarter core earnings of $0.78 per share, up 30% year over year, and core sales of $4.74 billion, up 17%, on Tuesday. Shares slid 14% in premarket trading following the release.
Corning posted core EPS of $0.78 and core sales of $4.74 billion in the second quarter, but its third-quarter outlook fell short of Wall Street expectations
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Corning reported second-quarter core earnings of $0.78 per share, up 30% year over year, and core sales of $4.74 billion, up 17%, on Tuesday. Shares slid 14% in premarket trading following the release.
Wall Street had expected adjusted earnings of $0.76 per share. Analyst consensus called for sales of $4.63 billion, according to Barron's.
The disappointment centered on guidance. Corning's third-quarter outlook called for core EPS in a range of $0.85 to $0.89 and core sales between $4.9 billion and $5 billion. Analysts had expected third-quarter sales of $4.99 billion and earnings of $0.85 per share, according to Barron's.
Corning's Optical Communications segment led results, with net sales of $2.07 billion in the second quarter, up 32% from a year earlier. Enterprise Networks within that segment grew 65%, the company said. The Solar segment posted sales of $438 million, up 90% year over year, though the segment recorded a net loss of $7 million. Corning said it expects Solar profitability to improve in the third quarter following the completion of an extended maintenance shutdown and equipment upgrade at its solar wafer facility.
On a GAAP basis, net sales were $4.51 billion and diluted EPS was $0.64.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Wendell P. Weeks said in a statement that the company is "entering a new phase of accelerating growth" and expects a sales compound annual growth rate of 19% from the fourth quarter of 2026 to the fourth quarter of 2030. The company's Springboard Plan targets an annualized sales run rate of $20 billion by the end of 2026, $30 billion by the end of 2028, and $40 billion by the end of 2030.
In the quarter, Corning announced agreements with Amazon $AMZN and NVIDIA. Amazon entered a multiyear, multibillion-dollar agreement under which Corning will supply optical fiber, cable, and connectivity solutions for its U.S. data centers. NVIDIA and Corning announced a long-term partnership under which Corning will expand its U.S. optical connectivity manufacturing capacity tenfold and increase domestic fiber production capacity by more than 50%.
Corning reported first-quarter core sales of $4.35 billion and core EPS of $0.70 earlier this year, driven by demand for fiber-optic products tied to AI data center construction. At the time, the company also announced two hyperscaler deals comparable in scale to an earlier multiyear agreement with Meta $META and outlined plans to extend its Springboard growth plan through 2030.
Other optical networking stocks fell Tuesday alongside Corning. Ciena lost 5.9%, Coherent shed 5.7%, and Lumentum retreated 4.7%.
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