Corning posted a sharp rise in first-quarter sales and profit on April 28, then told investors it expects another solid quarter as demand for generative AI products and new solar products keeps building. The company said core sales rose 18% to $4.35 billion and core earnings per share climbed 30% to $0.70 from a year earlier.
Wendell P. Weeks said the results reflected the “powerful trajectory” of Corning’s Springboard plan, while Chief Financial Officer Ed Schlesinger said the quarter showed “continued excellent performance.” Corning said it delivered its eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth, with core operating margin expanding 220 basis points, core gross margin rising 120 basis points and core ROIC improving 190 basis points.
The gains were broad, but the biggest lift came from businesses tied to faster data-center and energy spending. Optical Communications sales rose 36% in the quarter, while solar sales jumped 80% from a year earlier. Corning said two additional hyperscale customers signed large, long-term agreements similar in size and duration to its recently announced multiyear deal with Meta that could be worth up to $6 billion.
That matters because Corning is no longer just selling glass and fiber into mature markets. It is leaning harder into infrastructure for generative AI, and it plans to introduce a new Market-Access Platform at its May 6 investor event in New York City. Its Optical Communications Photonics Market-Access Platform is intended to serve Gen AI OEM customers, giving the company a more direct way to capture demand as data-center buildouts accelerate.
The company also said it plans to upgrade and extend its Springboard plan through 2030, building on a strategy that has already produced a 33% increase in core sales and a 79% rise in core EPS from its Q4-2023 starting point. Corning’s first-quarter GAAP sales were $4.14 billion, with GAAP gross margin of 36.9%, GAAP operating margin of 15.4% and GAAP EPS of $0.43. Operating cash flow totaled $362 million.
The one drag in the outlook is in solar. Corning said second-quarter guidance includes an extended maintenance shutdown at its solar wafer facility, as it transitions to a permanent power system and repairs and upgrades equipment to raise throughput later in the year. The work will add about $30 million of expense in the second quarter versus the first.
Even with that hit, management expects second-quarter core sales to rise about 14% year over year to roughly $4.6 billion, with core EPS up about 25% to a range of $0.73 to $0.77. The message from Corning is clear: demand is still outrunning the company’s old pace, and the next test is whether it can keep turning that demand into margin while it remakes parts of the business around AI and solar.