CORNING (AP) -- The faltering economy doesn't seem to be hurting sales of Corning Incorporated's liquid crystal display products used in flat-screen televisions.
The upstate New York-based company says its first-quarter profit tripled to more than 1 billion dollars, thanks to increased demand for glass used in flat-screen televisions and laptop computers. Company officials say they see no evidence of the U.S. economy impacting LCD-TV sales.
The specialty glass and ceramics maker said Tuesday that earnings climbed to $1.029 billion, or 64 cents a share, up from $327 million, or 20 cents a share, a year earlier.
The company said sales surged 24 percent to $1.62 billion from $1.31 billion.
Excluding a one-time credit of $327 million, earnings came to 44 cents a share. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected net profit of 42 cents a share on sales of $1.594 billion.
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