Corning 4Q profit soars on TV glass demand

Corning Inc. said Tuesday its profit almost tripled in the fourth quarter on surging sales of glass for flat-screen televisions and computers.

The world's largest maker of liquid-crystal-display glass, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the market, expects industry volume to grow 16.7 percent to 2.8 billion square feet this year from an estimated 2.4 billion square feet in 2009.

After an alarming slowdown in late 2008 triggered by recession jitters among LCD-TV panel makers, "we began 2009 with a high degree of uncertainty," said Chief Executive Wendell Weeks.

But he said momentum picked up and the second half of 2009 "was …