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Corning Incorporated (GLW)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Wed, Jul 27, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Corning, Incorporated quarter two 2016 earnings results. It is my pleasure to turn the call over to Ann Nicholson, Division Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Ann H. S. Nicholson - Division Vice President, Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Cynthia, and good morning. Welcome to Corning's second quarter conference call. With me today is Wendell Weeks, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Tony Tripeny, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Jeff Evenson, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer. Before we begin our formal comments, I'd like to remind you that today's remarks contain forward-looking statements that fall within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These remarks involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. These factors are detailed in the company's financial reports. You should also note that we will be discussing our results using core performance measures, unless we specifically indicate our comments relate to GAAP. Our core performance measures are non-GAAP measures used by management to analyze the business. A reconciliation of core results to the comparable GAAP value can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website at Corning. We have slides posting live on our webcast to accompany our formal comments, and they will be available on our website later this morning. Now, I'll turn the call over to Wendell. Wendell P. Weeks - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Ann. Good morning, everyone. As you saw on this morning's press release, second quarter results exceeded our expectations, with core EPS up 32% sequentially to $0.37. We told you coming into this year that we expected the first quarter to be the weakest and that momentum would build throughout the year. We still expect that to be the case. We're very encouraged by our second quarter improvement and we are confident that we will see both sequential and year-over-year growth in sales and EPS in the third quarter. Tony will discuss our results…

Ann H. S. Nicholson - Division Vice President, Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Tony. I will open the lines now for questions. Cynthia?

Operator

Operator

Certainly. Our first question will come from the line of Mehdi Hosseini with SIG. Your line is...

Mehdi Hosseini - Susquehanna International Group

Analyst · SIG. Your line is..

Thanks for taking my question. Going to your comment about pricing trend in the glass segment, you're talking about price decline moderating. Can you help us understand the magnitude? Is moderation a reference to, like, down low single digit or down 3% to 5%? Any additional color would be great, and I have a follow-up. R. Tony Tripeny - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Sure. It is low single digits, and it's similar to what we experienced in Q2.

Mehdi Hosseini - Susquehanna International Group

Analyst · SIG. Your line is..

Okay. And then on the Gorilla side, I'm surprised that you're down-ticking again. Even if I were to look at the revised smartphone unit shipment, it still shows up 3% to 5% on a year-over-year basis, and the display size is actually growing. So, why that you're down ticking? And I'm asking you in the context of, if there's any ASP pressure here? R. Tony Tripeny - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: No, this is all about volume, and I think the piece that you're missing, Mehdi, is what's happening on the tablet market. And, of course, from a glass standpoint, tablets are bigger, so that has an outsized impact. And I think both the outlook for smartphones and on tablets have come down in the second quarter, and that's the primary reason that we now believe that that market's going to be consistent to down slightly as opposed to that we thought it would grow in the past.

Mehdi Hosseini - Susquehanna International Group

Analyst · SIG. Your line is..

Okay, got it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Patrick Newton with Stifel. Your line is open. Patrick Newton - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Good morning, Wendell, Tony, and Jeff. I guess, Tony, a clarification on the guidance for the equity earnings of $15 million in the quarter. I believe you said that will now exclude Hemlock Semiconductor, which is going to move up the P&L and I'm curious if you could help us understand what the contribution from Hemlock will be in the quarter? R. Tony Tripeny - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: I'm sorry. I maybe didn't explain that very well. It will be on the equity earnings line still, and that $15 million is mostly from Hemlock. The difference is, is that previously Hemlock was reported on an after-tax basis, because the taxes were taken care of at the Dow Corning level, and now taxes are taken care of at the Corning level. So, there's a slight change in the geography, but it's not off the equity earnings line. Patrick Newton - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Wonderful, thanks for the clarification. And then I guess just dovetailing off the prior Gorilla Glass question. What are the volumes forecasted to be from a growth perspective in 2016 and then longer term? Can you walk us through what will return Gorilla Glass to growth, post a multi-year stagnation? Wendell P. Weeks - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So for us in Gorilla, I think as Tony said, when we came into the year, we felt the market was going to grow, albeit at a slower rate. And now, pretty widely reported that the expectations are for the market to be pretty flattish. So, now then you start – where do our strategies begin to…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rod Hall with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Rod B. Hall - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · Rod Hall with JPMorgan. Your line is open

Hi. Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to ask on Display. Tony, you guys are keeping the Display guidance unchanged for the full year, at least the market guidance. And the seasonality implication for that, at least on our calculations, is that Q4 ends up higher than normal seasonally. So I wanted to see if we could get more color on why you see that occurring, given the weakness we see in smartphones and elsewhere in the consumer electronics market. And then secondly, I wonder if you guys could comment on the Specialty guidance reduction that is consistent with what we see in the market as well, which is weak demand. But I wonder. Could you give us more color on regional demand weakness? Where do you see things incrementally developing weaker as you sit right now, and how do you think the regional demand plays out through the back end of the year? Thank you. R. Tony Tripeny - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Okay, let me start with the Display demand question. What really drives this market, Rod, of course, is what happens in TVs. And even though it is true that IT and handheld demand is down, it has a small impact on the overall display market. What really matters is what happens in TVs, and we expect that TV units are going to be up 2% on a year-over-year basis. As we go through the year, we've seen some stronger demand than what we expected, in particular in North America but also in Europe, but there have been some areas that have been weaker like in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, and also Japan's been a little bit weaker. But when you net that out, it comes back to that 2%. And the other really important factor is what happens with screen size. And from a screen size standpoint, we're looking at screen size growth greater than 1.5 inches. So when you add all that together, even though it's a little bit weaker on other mobile consumer electronic products, that still puts us in that 8% to 10% range.

Rod B. Hall - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · Rod Hall with JPMorgan. Your line is open

Tony, do you see seasonality better than normal though in Q4? Because that's what seems to be implied by that assumption. R. Tony Tripeny - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Yes, we do. And keep in mind that last year, a lot of that just depends on where the overall demand actually is and how panel makers are adjusting their inventories at a given point in time. And given the strength in demand, we do see that. Wendell P. Weeks - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And, Rod, it's a very legitimate question. Because in that fourth quarter, it's a lot about value chain management. And we're coming off a period where you can remember last year in quarter four and quarter one, we were seeing a correction of the value chain, and we think that's behind us. But you're right that that quarter four, it's going to get influenced a lot on how people feel about that selling season. So always worth some thought, but that's the way we see it.

Rod B. Hall - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · Rod Hall with JPMorgan. Your line is open

Okay. Thanks, Wendell. And then what about just how you see regional demand developing on IT and handhelds? Wendell P. Weeks - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I don't think we have that much remarkable there. Developing markets overall were part of the spot weakness, I think, as you take a look at that space. But I think it's a little – the data at that level, I think we have a little bit less clarity on than we do on something like TV that really drives glass demand. But I think by peeling apart some of the comments by our customers in conversations with them, that's what we're picking up is that the developing market will be weaker and less excitement about product launch this year.

Rod B. Hall - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · Rod Hall with JPMorgan. Your line is open

Great, okay. Thank you, guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from the line of Vijay Bhagavath at Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Vijay Bhagavath - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open

Yeah. Hey, good morning. Yeah, strong results here. I have a question on the strength you note in data center and fiber – fiber-to-the-home. Help us understand the sales dynamics. Like, would you have multi-quarter design wins at one of the major cloud companies for these data center and fiber build-outs, and similar design wins at the major service providers, publicly announced outside client fiber build-outs? I want to better understand the sales design win dynamics in Optical. Thanks. Wendell P. Weeks - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: It sounds like you actually understand them, Vijay. That's exactly right. The only little correction I'd make is it's a lot more than multi-quarter. When we do something like fiber-to-the-home systems, our development cycles with our customers go for a pretty long time. And then it sets and locks on this is the design that they're going to use and then away we go. And then what really provides the dynamic there is that really share shift and things like that. It basically comes down to, these are our Works efforts and where they want to build networks. So, it sounds to me like you got a good understanding. The hyper data centers, the data center pieces, our share has been growing. And both our share of overall spend as Optical and then sort of within in Optical. And that's another one where our position is strong, so the more they build, the better we get.

Vijay Bhagavath - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open

And then a quick follow-on, thanks to you. The AFOP, line fiber acquisition, is it helping you open doors in Asia Pacific in particular? Thanks. Wendell P. Weeks - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Interesting. Yes. They have some position especially in some of the OEMs that we don't have in the Asia Pacific. And well, we're really, really interested in that. It wasn't the primary driver of the transaction, which is we want to get as big as we can in hyper data centers, but I think you've made a good observation there, and we think that could be a nice surprise, nice added benefit for us if it continues to evolve the way it seems like it could, Vijay.

Vijay Bhagavath - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open

Thanks, great results. Congratulations to you and your team. Wendell P. Weeks - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, sir.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from the line of Steven Fox with Cross Research. Your line is open.

Steven Fox - Cross Research LLC

Analyst · Cross Research. Your line is open

Thanks, good morning. Two questions from me, please. First on Gorilla Glass. You noted how Gorilla Glass 4 mix is actually helping your profitability now. Can you sort of talk about how that mix plays out in terms of where you are as a percentage of maybe shipments, roughly, and then how Gorilla 5 sort of impacts that mix maybe over the next few quarters and also the profits going forward? And then, secondly, Tony, I know you mentioned that the cash flows are back-end loaded for the year, but are we still looking at similar expectations as to what you were thinking a quarter ago at the analyst meeting for cash flow from operations around $3 billion or is that maybe a little lighter now? Thanks. R. Tony Tripeny - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: I'll start with that question. Probably from an overall standpoint, it's a little bit lighter than that. If you think about what drives our cash flow, we did have a onetime payment, a legal settlement, that wouldn't had been in that projections originally. And then, of course, the other big factor is where income actually ends up on a year-over-year basis. And our first quarter was obviously softer than what we originally projected, but it's still going to be quite strong. Still going to be well – closer to $3 billion than it would be to say $2.5 billion. Wendell P. Weeks - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: To your first question, Steven, I would love to answer that question, but they're not letting me tell you. So, let me describe it in a little broader sense rather than give you my direct answer about what we're trying to do. So, the market has a certain dynamic in that how do…

Steven Fox - Cross Research LLC

Analyst · Cross Research. Your line is open

Yeah, that's very helpful. I appreciate all that color. Thanks so much. Wendell P. Weeks - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: All right.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We'll go to the line of Doug Clark with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Douglas Clark - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Great, thanks for taking my question. First one on Display and glass pricing. I notice you didn't mention the FX environment and the yen move. I've gotten a number of questions that wanted to kind of get your opinion if the recent strengthening of the yen has any impact or could factor into conversations about future glass pricing? R. Tony Tripeny - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Sure, and I will be happy to answer that. We've got to obviously answer this based on our analysis of the situation. And we do recognize that the yen fluctuates, and that will impact both the glass procurement cost for our customers, and they buy glass in yen, they sell the panels in dollars. And we also know that our competitors, the Japanese glass makers, could also get a temporary translation benefit when the yen strengthens, or of course a temporary loss when it weakens against the countries they manufacture. But we don't think this is going to be a big impact. The effect on customers is not as big as it used to be. Glass used to be 15% to 20% of the customer material cost; it's now only about 8%. And then the second factor is our competitors are not as profitable as they used to be. And any benefit they get from yen appreciation may only be temporary, so for these reasons we don't expect to see a meaningful pricing impact, a result of the yen movement. And the perfect example of that is what happened in Q2, where the yen strengthened considerably but price declines were moderate. So we don't believe this is…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We'll go to the line of Stanley Kovler with Citi Research. Your line is open.

Stanley Kovler - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to ask, this is actually a similar set but a different vein, so if the yen strengthened and you have some opportunity for additional hedging in the out years, given multiyear lows for the yen, were there any discussions or additional hedging taken? And then I have a follow-up. Thank you. R. Tony Tripeny - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: There were not any additional hedges taken. There was lots of discussion about it. We are 70% hedged out through 2022, and so it's something that we are spending time modeling. Also, thinking both in terms of what the outlying demand is out in those years, maybe different instruments that we could be using as opposed to the forwards we've been using. And so we're doing a lot of work on it, but we didn't do anything in the second quarter.

Stanley Kovler - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Got it, thanks. And back to Display, during the quarter, in late May you started to suggest that there is a possibility of unit volumes tracking towards more like 1.5% growth versus the original 2% guidance, and now back to 2%. That really is interesting because it didn't really impact your screen size inputs as well. I would think that with the strengthening of the TV space in general that there would be some discussion about maybe screen size tracking closer to two inches as well. I know those are two separate topics, but just the market in general. And then looking out into next year, you talked about your share being relatively stable, irrespective of where customers are. But if that customer of yours does shift to a different technology and let's say sells off the equipment for Gen 7 and that goes to even a different region, how should we think about your share in other regions and with new customer entrants in the panel space? Thank you. R. Tony Tripeny - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: So you're absolutely right on the TV demand. What we saw in the data in the last couple of months was stronger demand in North America and Europe, and a lot of those were larger-size TVs. And so there was also a little bit of tick up in our projection on screen sizes. But when you add it all up, we're still in that range of 8% to 10%. And we realize as we get data every month, that can change the absolute number a little bit, but it doesn't change what we think is the overall underlying demand, which is up in the 8% to 10% range. Wendell P. Weeks - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And on the moving around of capacity, I think what's really important to remember is how small one Gen 7 fab is in the overall scheme of the enormous size of this market. And so in a way, that capacity could end up one place or another, but you're within the error bars on the overall market range. And I think a good way to just think about it is wherever it goes, we'll probably end up one way or the other maintaining a pretty stable share, our average share across the entire market just because it's just not that big a deal – relative. There was a time when one Gen 7 fab, that occupied most of my life. But now it's like, eh, another Gen 7 fab.

Ann H. S. Nicholson - Division Vice President, Investor Relations

Management

Thanks, Stan. Cynthia, we have time for one more question we can squeak in.

Operator

Operator

And that will come from the line of George Notter with Jefferies. Your line is open.

George C. Notter - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open

Hi, thanks very much, guys. I guess I was curious, going back to the TV unit assumptions, positive 2% year on year. If I look at, for example, the market research firm IHS, I know those guys are looking for year-on-year comparisons that are negative on TV sales, and obviously it's such a huge variable for you guys. Do you guys have any comments on why your assumptions might be different from theirs? And then also I wanted to ask on Iris, I think you said earlier in the monologue that you're seeing more commercial traction. Any detail you can give us on exactly what you're seeing there in terms of design wins or revenue would be great. Thanks. R. Tony Tripeny - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Sure. On the TV unit size, we do recognize that some forecasters have different projections than we do, but it's so important to us that we spend a lot of time looking at things by region. And you could pack a lot of intelligence, understanding at the very end markets on what's happening. And we feel very good about the idea that we'll be up about 2%. And especially what's happened in the last couple of months relative to the TV demand, in particular in North America where it is a good bit stronger than what we projected at the beginning of the year. Wendell P. Weeks - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And just to add, I think what, TV units, there are legitimate point of view differences. But whether or not you thought TV units were going to be up 1%, up 2%, or even relatively flat, that you can remember, I think we actually showed it to you on this slide on the 2016 outlook when…

Ann H. S. Nicholson - Division Vice President, Investor Relations

Management

About Iris? Wendell P. Weeks - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Iris, right. So, Iris is continuing to get some really good commercial transaction with – now we're up to a number of customers that are really evaluating it very strongly, and some are choosing to launch with it, right? It's still early days. As many of you may have heard me speak, I tend to think about disruptive innovations like this, because it's highly disruptive, you're displacing an incumbent technology, a PMMA, with a brand-new material set, to be able to make televisions thinner and with smaller bezels, that it tends to go in phases. You go from the idea then you get a breakthrough. And then if it's really good, you can get a breakout and then you have to defend your really strong position. I'm getting increasingly confident we're going to have a breakthrough. It's going to penetrate large edge-lit TVs, and it's going to have a meaningful penetration into that. Now, whether or not we got a breakout and this becomes a really dominant technology choice for edge-lit, it's just too early to tell. But the good news is the increased commercial transaction is increasing our confidence that you're going to start to see some multiple sets introduce using this technology and we're going to penetrate the market some. But to be significant, we've still got a ways to go.

Ann H. S. Nicholson - Division Vice President, Investor Relations

Management

Thank you. That was our last question. Wendell P. Weeks - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Great, thanks to everyone for listening and the terrific questions. We wish you an enjoyable summer and look forward to updating you on framework progress and results throughout the rest of the quarter. Be well.

Ann H. S. Nicholson - Division Vice President, Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Wendell. Just a couple of announcements from IR. We will be at the City Conference on September 7 in New York. Telephonic playback of this call is available beginning at 11:00 AM Eastern today and will run until 5:00 PM on Wednesday, August 10. To listen, dial 800-475-6701 and the access code is 397185. The audiocast is available on our website for one year. Cynthia, that concludes our call. Please disconnect all lines.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen that does conclude your conference call for today. Thank you for your participation and for using AT&T Executive Teleconference Service. You may now disconnect.