CORNING, N.Y., April 28, 2026, 08:06 (EDT)
- Corning posted an 18% jump in core sales for the first quarter, hitting $4.35 billion, with growth fueled by Gen AI momentum and a ramp-up in solar.
- The company announced two additional long-term hyperscaler agreements—both roughly matching the scale and length of its up-to-$6 billion Meta deal.
- Stock slipped in premarket action, with investors digesting Q2 guidance and looming costs tied to a planned solar-wafer shutdown.
Corning turned in a strong first-quarter, with profit and core revenue jumping on Tuesday thanks to fiber demand for AI data centers and gains in its solar segment. Even so, the stock slipped in premarket trade—investors seemed to be looking for more after the recent climb.
Timing is key here. Corning, now under the microscope as a major supplier for the AI boom, sits at the intersection of data center expansion—those facilities are hungry for more fiber, cable, and high-speed optical links to shuttle data across sprawling networks. This quarter, the company finally saw that demand materialize in its numbers, not just in Wall Street chatter.
Corning reported core sales of $4.35 billion, up 18% year-on-year on an adjusted basis that excludes currency and other variables. Core earnings per share climbed 30% to 70 cents. GAAP sales increased 20% to $4.14 billion. Net income jumped, more than doubling to $371 million, or 43 cents a share.
Analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research had been looking for adjusted earnings of 70 cents a share; three of them projected revenue would hit $4.27 billion. Investing.com, for its part, had consensus estimates at 69 cents a share and $4.29 billion in revenue.
Optical Communications led the way, posting a 36% jump in sales to $1.85 billion and a 93% surge in net income. Solar was up 80% to $370 million, but net income for that segment tumbled compared to the prior year. Glass Innovations—covering both display and specialty materials—managed just a 1% increase, while Automotive slipped 1%.
Chief Executive Wendell Weeks called the results another step in Corning’s “powerful trajectory” under its Springboard growth plan, aimed at boosting sales, margins and returns. Weeks added that Corning locked in two additional hyperscaler deals—industry shorthand for major cloud and AI data-center customers—matching the Meta agreement in both scale and length that was unveiled in January. Securities and Exchange Commission
Reuters said in January that Meta’s deal ran as high as $6 billion through 2030 for fiber-optic cables powering AI-oriented data centers. Should these new, unnamed clients strike similar agreements, Corning could find itself even more reliant on a handful of tech customers—buyers whose capex decisions now shape the optical-networking supply chain.
Corning CFO Ed Schlesinger pointed to the company’s eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year gains. Optical Communications and Solar drove results this quarter, Schlesinger said, adding that the solar module segment is set to turn profitable in the second quarter.
Corning is projecting core sales around $4.6 billion for the second quarter, with core EPS expected to land between 73 and 77 cents. That midpoint—75 cents—falls a hair under the analyst consensus of 76 cents. The outlook also reflects an added $30 million in costs tied to the prolonged shutdown at a solar wafer plant, as the company moves to a permanent power setup and carries out production equipment upgrades.
Investors may have gotten ahead of the numbers. Corning shares dropped roughly 10% in premarket trade, according to Seeking Alpha, after the company’s second-quarter sales forecast came in shy of the $4.67 billion analysts expected; later, market data pegged the loss closer to 4.5%. Slower demand from hyperscalers, setbacks in the solar business, or extra costs from the shutdown could all put more pressure on that outlook.
The field is hardly standing still. Amphenol is touting its optical and high-speed interconnect lines for AI and hyperscale data centers, while Ciena pushes its AI-ready optical networking and data-center interconnect gear. Corning leans on its fiber and glass strengths, yet with capex pressures unchanged, more suppliers are muscling into the AI infrastructure contest.
Corning’s investor update lands May 6 in New York, with plans to stretch Springboard out to 2030 and roll out a Photonics Market-Access Platform targeting Gen AI OEMs. That gathering just picked up heavier lifting: it’ll need to clarify how current AI-driven orders translate into sustained revenue, and detail what portion of the coming growth is already under contract.
