Corning is as pure a play on the LCD trend as there can be. The company makes the very basic component – glass – that allows the likes of LG, Phillips and Samsung to churn out those LCD screens to go with your super fast computers, or be your televisions. LCD and Plasma demand are the sole reasons why Corning has been able to recover from its nasty telecommunication misadventure. I had recently written about how the oversupply situation was developing leading to fall in LCD prices. Well that helped Corning out nicely, since they make glass which is used by most LCD makers.

Corning estimates that the decline in retail prices has helped LCD televisions to carve up 10% of the total TV market, and is on track to double that in next two years. Things have been that good lately that company’s CFO James Flaws recent told Wall Street Analysts that 2006 could simply be a year like never before.

We are looking forward to a strong 2006 in the LCD market. While the LCD television market is in its early stages, we believe it will account for 10 percent of the global TV market this year and could reach 20 percent to 25 percent by 2007.

But there is one caveat on this whole thing – energy prices. Not many people correlate high-tech product demands with oil prices, but that is often the case. Higher oil/energy prices could mean that discretionary dollars would be sucked up by cars, and of course the cost of power is going to be up as well. LCD/Plasma screens do suck-up a lot of electricity.

(Link to Business 2.0 site!)