| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Traded as | NYSE: GLW S&P 500 Component |
| Industry | Materials |
| Founded | 1851 |
| Headquarters | Corning, New York |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Wendell P. Weeks (Chairman, CEO, & President) |
| Products | Specialty glass Ceramics Optical fiber Cable, hardware & equipment Emissions control technology LCD glass Life sciences products |
| Revenue | US$6.632 billion (2010)[1] |
| Operating income | US$1.801 billion (2010)[1] |
| Net income | US$3.558 billion (2010)[1] |
| Total assets | US$25.833 billion (2010)[1] |
| Total equity | US$19.426 billion (2010)[1] |
| Employees | 26,200 (2010)[1] |
| Divisions | Display Technologies, Telecommunications, Environmental Technologies, Specialty Materials, Life Sciences |
| Website | www.corning.com |
Corning Incorporated (NYSE: GLW) is an American manufacturer of glass, ceramics and related materials, primarily for industrial and scientific applications. The company was known as Corning Glass Works until 1989, when it changed its name to Corning Incorporated. In 1998 Corning divested itself of its consumer lines of CorningWare and Corelle tableware and Pyrex cookware selling them to World Kitchen, but still holds an interest of about 8%. As of 2008[update] Corning had five major business sectors: Display Technologies, Environmental Technologies, Life Sciences, Telecommunications and Specialty Materials. Corning is also involved in several joint equity ventures, including Dow Corning and two companies, Quest Diagnostics and Covance, that were spun off from Corning.
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Corning Glass Works was founded in 1851 by Amory Houghton, in Somerville, Mass, originally as the Bay State Glass Co. It later moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, and operated as the Brooklyn Flint Glass Works. The company moved again to its ultimate home and namesake, the city of Corning, New York, in 1869 under leadership of the founder's son, Amory Houghton, Jr.
Over 140 years later, Corning continues to maintain its world headquarters at Corning, N.Y. The firm also established one of the first industrial research labs there in 1906. It continues to expand the nearby research and development facility, as well as operations associated with catalytic converters and diesel engine filter product lines. Corning has a long history of community development and has assured community leaders that it intends to remain headquartered in its small upstate New York hometown.[2]
The company had a history of science-based innovations following World War II and the strategy by management was research and "disruptive" and "on demand" product innovation.[3]
In 1968 Corning developed a new toughened automobile windshield designed to be thinner and lighter than existing windshields, which reduced danger of personal injury by shattering into small granules when smashed.[4] This toughened glass had a chemically hardened outer layer, and its manufacture incorporated an ion exchange and a "fusion process" in special furnaces that Corning built in its Blacksburg, Virginia facility.[3][5] Corning developed it as an alternative to laminated windshields with the intention of becoming an automotive industry supplier.[3] The new windshields debuted on the 1970 model year Javelins and AMXs built by American Motors Corporation (AMC).[5] As there were no mandatory safety standards for motor vehicle windshields, the larger automakers had no financial incentive to change from the cheaper existing products.[3][5] Corning terminated its windshield project in 1971, after it turned out to be one of the company's "biggest and most expensive failures."[5]
In the fall of 1997, the company announced that researchers Robert D. Maurer, Donald Keck, Peter C. Schultz, and Frank Zimar had demonstrated an optical fiber with a low optical attenuation of 17 dB per kilometer by doping silica glass with titanium. A few years later they produced a fiber with only 4 dB/km, using germanium oxide as the core dopant. Such low attenuations made fiber optics practical for telecommunications and networking. Corning became the world's leading manufacturer of optical fiber.
Company profits soared in the late 1990s during the dot-com boom, and Corning expanded its fiber operations significantly with several new plants. The company also entered the photonics market, investing heavily with the intent of becoming the leading provider of complete fiber-optic systems. Failure to succeed in photonics and the collapse in 2000 of the dot-com market had a major impact on the company, and Corning stock plummeted to $1 per share. However, as of 2007[update] the company had posted five straight years of improving financial performance.
Corning is a leading manufacturer of the glass used in liquid crystal displays. In 2011 Corning announced the expansion of existing facilities and the construction of a Gen 10 facility co-located with the Sharp Corporation manufacturing complex in Sakai, Osaka, Japan.[6] The LCD glass substrate is produced without heavy metals.
The company continues to produce optical fiber and cable for the communications industry at its Wilmington and Concord plants in North Carolina. It is also a major manufacturer of ceramic emission control devices for catalytic converters in cars and light trucks that use gasoline engines. The company is also investing in the production of ceramic emission control products for diesel engines as a result of tighter emission standards for those engines both in the U.S. and abroad.
In 2007 Corning introduced an optic fiber, ClearCurve, which uses nanostructure technology to facilitate the small radius bending found in FTTX installations.
Gorilla Glass, which is a high-strength alkali-aluminosilicate thin sheet glass used as a protective cover glass offering scratch resistance and durability in many handheld devices with touchscreens, went on sale in 2008.[7]
On October 25 2011 Corning unveiled Lotus Glass, an environmentally friendly and high-performance glass developed for OLED and LCD displays.[8]
Corning invests about 10% of revenue in research and development, and has allocated US$300 million towards further expansion of its Sullivan Park research facility near headquarters in Corning, N.Y.[9]
Corning Incorporated also manufactures a high-purity fused silica employed in microlithography systems, a low expansion glass utilized in the construction of reflective mirror blanks, windows for U.S. space shuttles, and Steuben art glass. The number of Corning facilities still employing the traditional tanks of molten glass has declined over the years, but it maintains the capacity to supply bulk or finished glass of many types.
Corning is engaged in research and development on green lasers, mercury abatement, microreactors, photovoltaics, and silicon on glass.
Corning employs over 26,000 people worldwide and had sales of $6.6 billion in 2010. The company has been listed for many years among Fortune magazine's 500 largest industrial companies, and was ranked #350 in 2011.
Although the company has long been publicly owned, James R. Houghton, great-great-grandson of the founder, served as chairman of the board of directors from 2001 to 2007. Over the years Houghton family ownership has declined to about 2%. Wendell P. Weeks has been with the company since 1983 and as of 2011[update] was chairman, chief executive officer, and president.
Over its 150-year history Corning invented a process for rapid and inexpensive production of light bulbs (Corning developed the glass for Thomas Edison's light bulb), was an early major manufacturer of glass panels and funnels for television tubes, invented and produced Vycor (high temperature glass with high thermal shock resistance), and invented and produced Corelle (durable glass dinnerware), Pyrex, and Pyroceram (glass-ceramic cookware). Corning manufactured the windows for U.S. manned space vehicles, and supplied the glass blank for the primary mirror in the Hubble Space Telescope. Corning won the National Medal of Technology four times for its product and process innovations.
In July 2008 Corning announced the sale of Steuben Glass Works to Steuben Glass LLC, an affiliate of the private equity firm Schottenstein Stores Corporation. Steuben Glass had been unprofitable for more than a decade, losing 30 million dollars over the previous five years.[10]
As of 2011[update]:
In December 2011, the non-partisan organization Public Campaign criticized Corning for spending $2.81 million on lobbying and not paying any taxes during 2008-2010, instead getting $4 million in tax rebates, despite making a profit of $1.98 billion and having a total compensation for the top 5 executives between $35 and $45 million per year.[11]