Corning, Inc.

Strong Q2 execution; financial profile improving faster than revenue - Sales up 17% YoY to $4.74B; core EPS up 30% to $0.78 (above guide range). - Gross margin +120 bps to 39.6%; operating margin +190 bps to 20.9%; ROIC +180 bps to 14.9%. - Free cash flow $1.42B (up meaningfully), supporting Springboard’s “earnings faster than sales + more cash” narrative.

Optical Communications is the growth engine (and profitability jump is “real,” not just top-line) - Optical Communications sales $2.07B (+32% YoY); net income $438M (+77% YoY) with NPAT margin ~21% (record profitability). - Enterprise sales +65% YoY; AI data-center-related enterprise nearly doubled in the quarter. - Management sees accelerating orders driven by Gen AI + enterprise networks; however they explicitly note “scale-up and photonics” are not yet showing up fully in current results (“just scale out” so far).

Guidance for Q3: still robust but one key “surprise” is how growth cadence is discussed - Q3 outlook: sales expected ~+16% YoY to $4.9B–$5.0B; core EPS +28% YoY to $0.85–$0.89. - 4Q question answered: company indicated it may reach the $20B annualized sales run-rate earlier than Q4, so they didn’t “upgrade” the plan immediately—management framed this as no underlying slowdown message, but investors should watch for the updated cadence later.