NEW YORK: Corning Inc's quarterly profit beat Wall Street expectations and the specialty glass maker said the earthquake in Japan would not affect its sales beyond the second quarter, sending shares up more than 3.4 percent.
Sharp Corp, one of Corning's biggest customers for its liquid crystal display panels for televisions, cut production in its plants following last month's earthquake in Japan.
"Sharp's shutdown is a temporary situation that will only last through the second quarter," said Chief Financial Officer Jim Flaws in an interview.
Corning's first-quarter profit was $748 million, or 47 cents a share, compared with the average analyst estimate of 44 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
But profit fell 8 percent largely because of an increase in the company's tax rate to 13 percent from 3 percent a year earlier.
This year, Corning is also selling less of its higher margin products, such as LCD glass used in flat screen televisions, and more of its less profitable products, used in telecommunications, for example, which hurt its quarterly profit, said Oppenheimer & Co analyst Yair Reiner.
"Their revenue mix is changing," Reiner said.
The company's revenue rose 24 percent to $1.92 billion. Analysts were expecting revenue of $1.83 billion on Tuesday, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Shares were trading 3.4 percent higher at $21.31 on the New York Stock Exchange.
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