Demand for glass for flat-screen television has helped specialty glass maker Corning Inc post a second quarter profit of $611 million, or 39 cents per share; thereby beating the average analyst estimates of 32-cents-per-share earnings by the company in the mentioned quarter.

Corning's quarterly revenue figures of $1.4 billion were also better than the $1.36 billion expected by the analysts. The $1.4 billion sales for the quarter also indicated a 41 percent rise over the first-quarter sales of $989 million.

However, the same-quarter year-before net income stood at $782 million, or 49 cents per share; when the company earned $3.2 billion, or $2.01 per share, largely due to the company recording a large income tax benefit that time round.

Reporting the results on Monday, James B. Flaws, Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer of Corning - the company whose glass is used for flat-panel displays and fiber-optic cables - said: "The resurgent demand for LCD glass is propelling us to restore much of our previously idled production capacity as quickly as possible to meet our customers' needs."

Remarking that its forecast for LCD glass market volume in 2009 had been raised due to the "vitality" of LCD TV sales, Corning said that it estimates a 15 percent year-on-year growth to a total yearly volume of nearly 2.3 billion square feet.