CORNING, NY - While the overall telecommunications industry is showing some signs of improvement, Corning President and CEO Larry Aiello says he believes that a sustainable industry recovery will ultimately be led by strong customer demand for new service capabilities that systems such as fiber-to-the-premises enable. In fact, Corning expects any telecom recovery to be led eventually by development in the access segment of the network.
“By recovery, we mean a broad-based market improvement involving sustained construction by many customers in many regions,” Aiello said in a speech at the company’s annual investors’ meeting in early February. “Throughout the world we expect broadband use to continue to grow as increased capability, combined with speed, drive system requirements.”
In North America in particular, the access segment network growth is being driven largely by the bundling of telephony, broadband access and video. Corning asserts that optical is the best medium to provide this bundling of services, commonly referred to as “triple play,” over a common delivery platform.
“Optical communications’ inherent and demonstrable bandwidth far outstrips copper-based or wireless media. This means faster access speeds for customers and ‘future proofed’ networks for carriers,” Aiello said.
Corning is also optimistic about the future of its liquid crystal display (LCD) glass business, according to Peter Volanakis, president of Corning Technologies. The company expects the LCD glass market to grow between 40% and 60% this year and continue to grow at a compound annual rate of 40% through 2007. Volanakis noted that while the majority of the recent growth in LCD glass has been in the areas of desktop monitors and notebook computers, LCD television is expected to be a key driver of a “third wave” of glass demand, hitting with more impact this year.
“With Corning’s proprietary fusion draw process bringing larger generation sized panels to market, we are confident that Corning will continue to play an important role in helping LCD TV panel manufacturers enjoy greater economies-of-scale, thereby helping to reduce retail prices for consumers,” Volanakis said.