Corning third-quarter core sales rise 19% to $5.08 billion as optical sales grow 44%

Corning (NYSE: GLW) said third-quarter core sales rose 19% from a year earlier to $5.08 billion and core earnings per share rose 36% to $0.91, according to its results release of Tuesday, October 27. Sales of its optical communications unit rose 44% to $2.38 billion.

What happened

The materials maker reported GAAP sales of $4.86 billion, up 18% from the third quarter of 2025, and GAAP earnings per share of $0.78, up 56%. Core results are non-GAAP measures that adjust for hedged currency exposures and other items; the company published a reconciliation in the release.

The company said core gross margin expanded 150 basis points from a year earlier to 40.5% and core operating margin expanded 310 basis points to 22.7%. Adjusted free cash flow was $661 million, and Corning said it invested more than half a billion dollars in capital expenditures in the quarter.

Optical Communications was the largest driver. The company said its Enterprise Networks business grew sales 84%, and that sales of products for generative AI more than doubled from a year earlier. Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President Wendell P. Weeks said in the release: "in Optical Communications, faster adoption of our innovations helped us double our Gen AI sales year over year in the quarter, outpacing GPU unit growth."

Corning said it secured four long-term, multibillion-dollar customer agreements in the quarter, including with Verizon and AT&T.

Solar sales rose 37% from a year earlier, which the company said came as "production continued to ramp, albeit at a slower pace than anticipated." Corning also described U.S. trade action under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 as improving the pricing environment for U.S.-made solar products.

Why it matters

Corning ties its results to a multi-year growth plan it calls Springboard. Chief Financial Officer Ed Schlesinger said in the release that when the company upgraded the plan in May, it "laid out a path to double our annualized sales run rate from $20 billion to $40 billion by the end of 2030."

The company said the quarter showed that "the acceleration of growth outlined in the company's '20-30-40' Springboard Plan has begun." It described the 19% increase in core sales as the strongest growth since the plan was launched. These characterizations are the company's own.

Optical Communications net sales were $2,379 million in the third quarter, compared with $2,072 million in the second quarter of 2026 and $1,652 million a year earlier, according to the release's segment table. The unit's net income was $532 million, up 80% from a year earlier.

The Glass Innovations segment, which combines the former Display and Specialty Materials businesses, reported net sales of $1,506 million, down 3% from a year earlier. The company said the segment continued to outperform television, notebook and smartphone markets that memory pricing had affected.

What to watch

For the fourth quarter, management said it expects core sales to grow approximately 19% from a year earlier to a range of $5.2 billion to $5.3 billion, and core earnings per share to grow approximately 36% to a range of $0.96 to $1.00. This is company guidance, not a forecast by FinanceInTime.

Corning said it is making solid progress building a Solar revenue stream of more than $3 billion and that improving productivity would raise output and profitability. The release does not give a date for that milestone.