TLDR
- Corning posted Q2 adjusted EPS of $0.78, beating the $0.75 consensus, with revenue of $4.74 billion, up 17% year-over-year.
- Q3 guidance came in mostly in-line but slightly below Wall Street hopes, sending the stock down 17% in premarket trading.
- Optical Communications led growth with sales up 32% to $2.07 billion; Enterprise Networks surged 65% on Gen AI demand.
- Corning announced major deals with Amazon and NVIDIA during the quarter.
- Other optical networking stocks dropped in sympathy — Ciena and Coherent each fell 5.7%, Lumentum dropped 6%.
Corning (GLW) stock dropped 17% in premarket trading Tuesday, hitting $118.43, after the company posted strong Q2 results but delivered guidance that left investors wanting more.
Q2 adjusted EPS came in at $0.78, up from $0.60 a year ago and above the $0.75 analyst consensus. Revenue hit $4.74 billion, a 17% year-over-year jump, beating the expected $4.62 billion.
The beat wasn’t enough. Wall Street had priced in optimism after GLW’s monster run — up 64% in 2025 and roughly 160% over the past 12 months through Monday’s close.
CORNING $GLW Q2’26 EARNINGS HIGHLIGHTS
🔹 Revenue: $4.74B (Est. $4.61B) 🟢; +17% YoY
🔹 Adj. EPS: $0.78 (Est. $0.76) 🟢; +30% YoY
🔹 Optical Communications: $2.07B; +32% YoY
🔹 Core Gross Margin: 39.6%; +120 bps YoYQ3 Guide:
🔹 Revenue: $4.9B-$5B (Est. $5BB) 🔴; +16% YoY
🔹… pic.twitter.com/YBOEiUafN2— Wall St Engine (@wallstengine) July 28, 2026
For Q3, Corning guided adjusted EPS of $0.85 to $0.89, with a midpoint of $0.87. That’s just a hair below the analyst consensus of $0.86. Revenue guidance of $4.9 billion to $5 billion put the midpoint at $4.95 billion — slightly under the $5 billion Wall Street was expecting.
That miss at the midpoint was enough to spook investors. If the premarket drop holds, it would mark Corning’s worst single-day percentage decline since October 8, 2002, per Dow Jones Market Data.
Strong Quarter Under the Hood
Inside the quarter, the numbers were genuinely solid. Optical Communications sales surged 32% to $2.07 billion. Enterprise Networks — the segment most tied to AI infrastructure — jumped 65%, driven by demand for Gen AI products.
The Solar segment was a bright spot on revenue, up 90% to $438 million, though it posted a net loss of $7 million following an extended maintenance shutdown.
Adjusted gross margin expanded 120 basis points to 39.6%. Adjusted operating margin improved 190 basis points to 20.9%. Adjusted free cash flow came in at $1.42 billion for the quarter.
CEO Wendell Weeks said Corning is now targeting an annualized sales run rate of $20 billion by end of 2026, $30 billion by end of 2028, and $40 billion by end of 2030.
Key Partnerships Announced
During the quarter, Corning struck a multiyear, multibillion-dollar agreement with Amazon for optical fiber and connectivity solutions.
It also locked in a long-term deal with NVIDIA to expand U.S.-based optical connectivity manufacturing capacity by 10 times.
Weeks described the company as “entering a new phase of accelerating growth,” pointing to a projected 19% sales compound annual growth rate from Q4 2025 through Q4 2030.
The broader sector felt the pressure. Ciena fell 5.7%, Coherent dropped 5.7%, and Lumentum was down 6% in sympathy with the move.
Heading into earnings, Wall Street was already cautious on the optical networking group given the large gains posted across the sector over the past year.
The adjusted free cash flow figure of $1.42 billion was the most recently reported metric from the quarter.
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