Corning manufactures and sells specialty glasses, ceramics, and related materials worldwide. The company operates through five segments: Display Technologies, Optical Communications, Environmental Technologies, Specialty Materials, and Life Sciences. The company was founded in 1851 and is based in Corning, New York.
All five of the company’s segments experienced growth in Q4 2020, with Specialty Materials and Environmental Technologies delivering the best results with 20% and 19% increases in sales, respectively. Overall, sales increased 6% in the quarter to $841 million. For all of 2020, they declined by 3%.
Corning has many sales and earnings drivers in 2021, and Wall Street is expecting its sales to grow 13.8% in 2021 before moderating to 5.2% growth in 2022. Meanwhile, earnings per share (EPS) is expected to follow suit in expanding from $1.39 in 2020 to $1.96 in 2021 and $2.19 in 2022. Similarly, free cash flow is expected to increase from $948 million in 2020 to $1.4 billion in 2021 and then to $1.55 billion in 2022. Together, these figures demonstrate that Corning trades on some very attractive 2022 valuations, and it’s hard not to argue that the company looks like a good value.
