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March 24, 2004
The future of the glass industry

The glass industry has two lines to improve its gains in the near future: fiber-optic cable and LCD glass.
One of the main characters to play a role is Corning (NYSE: GLW). This company is the world's largest manufacturer of fiber-optic cable. Though fiber-optic demand has suffered with the telecom depression, there would be a new build-out. For instance, Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), plans to run fiber to a million homes and businesses this year.
Knowing that fiber has 30 to 50 times the bandwidth of copper, the rapidly increasing demands of bandwidth would drive to fiber as the main alternative.
The other line holds up on the increasing demand for liquid crystal display (LCD) glass. LCD TV sales increased to more than 4 million in 2003 and are expected to be 35 million by 2007. For these TVs the glass accounts for 65% of the production cost (Corning has more than 50% of the market share on glass).
Nowadays, LCD TV glass represents a small piece of the cake. The majority is used for laptop computers (increasingly better and cheaper).
People are expecting that flat TV prices drop. When this occurs sales will increase.
Glass consumers: An important company is AU Optronics ADS (NYSE: AUO). Some people don't like AUO because it has a second public offer in May, 2004. So, it is considered it has no real support level. An option is Planar Systems (NASDAQ: PLNR) for Planar displays (2% held by insiders, 90% held by institutions and funds).
Opinions are welcome.

P.S.: A future topic: GLW making a market in the fuel cell business.

Gregorio Melean

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