PITTSBURGH -- PPG Industries has reported sales for the first quarter of $3.1 billion, an increase of 12 percent versus the prior year’s first quarter. First quarter reported net income was $30 million, or 18 cents per share, which included a significant charge related to a change in U.S. tax law. Adjusted net income was $117 million, or 70 cents per share.

First quarter 2009 sales were $2.8 billion and the reported loss was $111 million, or 68 cents per share, which included a significant charge for business restructuring. Adjusted net income was $32 million, or 19 cents per share.

“Throughout the first quarter, we continued to experience a moderate recovery in several of the global end-use markets we serve,” said Charles Bunch, PPG chairman and CEO. “This recovery, combined with lower costs resulting from our restructuring initiatives and other cost-reduction actions, positively impacted our financial results in comparison with what were very low earnings levels last year.

“Higher year-over-year sales volumes were most evident in our Industrial Coatings segment,” Bunch said, “which benefited from improving global automotive builds and gains in several general industrial applications. Also, our investments over the past several years to expand our presence in emerging regions, such as Asia/Pacific, continue to pay off. This region, in addition to our Optical and Specialty Materials segment, posted record-setting results and continues to drive growth for the corporation.” Bunch added that several of PPG’s businesses experienced weather-related sales softness early in the quarter, but rebounded strongly. “We easily exceeded our internal projections for March,” he said.

“Overall for the quarter,” Bunch said, “I am very pleased that all of the hard work and difficult steps we took over the past 18 months, throughout the recession, to position the company for economic recovery are now beginning to yield measurable benefits.”

Looking ahead to the rest of the year, Bunch said he was “encouraged that we are now entering what has historically been PPG’s best quarter with a very low cost position and growing momentum.” He said several businesses that have been slower to recover, such as Commodity Chemicals, are beginning to exhibit signs of improvement that, combined with PPG’s continued cost-reduction and execution focus, provide the company with a clear path for continued earnings recovery.