Corning Incorporated today announced the first shipments of Corning Gorilla Glass 2 to key device makers who plan to utilize the glass in new consumer electronics devices planned for release in 2012.

"Corning's new glass composition, Gorilla Glass 2, enables slimmer and sleeker devices, brighter images, and greater touch sensitivity, providing an ideal solution for the newest, most sophisticated smartphones, tablets, and personal computers," said David R. Velasquez, global director, Marketing and Commercial Operations, Corning Gorilla Glass."Since we launched Gorilla Glass 2 just last month at CES, we've qualified the glass with more than half of our current customers, and have shipped our first orders to customers who plan to start production and release product in the first quarter this year."

Corning Gorilla Glass 2 is the next generation of the widely accepted damage-resistant cover glass for consumer electronic devices, enabling up to 20% reduction in cover glass thickness without sacrificing the performance consumers have come to expect from the world's most widely deployed strengthened cover glass.

Introduced in 2007, Corning Gorilla Glass set the industry standard for damage-resistant cover glass. Today it is the most widely deployed cover glass, used by more than 30 major brands and has been designed into more than 600 product models, spanning over 600 million units worldwide.

Corning will demonstrate the new glass performance at the Pepcom event, MobileFocus Global, on Feb. 27, in Barcelona, Spain.