For us, this decreased GAAP earnings in Q3 by $16 million.
We received more than $1.7 billion in cash under our hedge contracts since their inception more than five years ago.
Sales grew 21% year over year to $3.6 billion, a new all-time high.
Gross margin expanded 50 basis points sequentially and 70 basis points year over year to 38.3%.
EPS grew 30% year over year to $0.56.
And free cash flow of $0.5 billion brought cumulative free cash generation for the first nine months of 2021 to $1.3 billion.
Auto production in the third quarter is estimated to be down nearly 20% year over year and 9% sequentially.
Broadband usage for September was up 32% versus pre-pandemic levels and up 9% versus September 2020, when remote work and school were largely in play.
Global 5G subscriptions have grown to almost $0.5 billion this year.
More applications are moving to the cloud and global data creation is expected to grow at 23% compound annual growth rate from 2020 to 2025.
Versus 2020, cloud revenue industrywide is up nearly 50%.
We are working toward passing 5 million homes per year.
France recently shared that they plan to reach 10 million more homes with fiber by the end of 2025 with their CEO saying, "Our future is fiber".
Microsoft CEO said that over the past year, they've added new data center clusters in 15 countries across five continents in support of their cloud business.
And we're pursuing $100 per car content opportunity across emissions and auto glass solutions.
Since 2017, our auto sales are up more than 40%, while global car sales are down 20%.
Second, the market for large-sized TVs is projected to grow at a double-digit compound annual growth rate through 2024.
And we're the leader in Gen 10.5, which is the most economical approach for larger sets.
We've all seen the declines in panel pricing, and we're beginning to see panel maker utilization adjustments.
Corning continues to support the pandemic response and its portfolio of advanced vials and pharmaceutical glass tubing has enabled the delivery of more than 3 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
Paint with Guardiant has been proven to kill 99.9% of bacteria and viruses, including the 1 that causes COVID-19.
We are on track to reach $14 billion in sales and over $2 in EPS.
During the third quarter, sales increased 21% year over year to $3.6 billion, led by the strength in Optical Communications and the strong performance in our other businesses.
EPS grew 30% year over year to $0.56.
The impact to Corning's results was approximately $40 million in sales and $0.02 of EPS.
Gross margin percent expanded 50 basis points sequentially and 70 basis points year over year to 38.3% despite a net impact of 150 basis points from supply chain challenges and inflationary headwinds.
Free cash flow grew to $497 million with cash generation of $1.3 billion for the first nine months of the year.
For example, we were able to offset a significant portion of elevated freight costs, but resin prices increased again.
Given this ongoing inflationary environment, we have price increases underway across all of our businesses.
In Display Technologies, sales were $956 million, up 2% sequentially and 16% year over year.
Since LCD televisions emerged as a mainstream technology in 2004, LCD TV units have only been down three times and never two years in a row.
Since 2014, TV sell-through units are typically range-bound between 225 million and 235 million, which average screen size grows about 1.5 inches a year.
In 2020, global television units increased 4% above the trend line to about $242 million.
Screen size growth was about 1.2 inches, about 20% below trend.
Entering this year, we expected and continue to expect the market to revert the trend, implying a decrease in TV units, especially smaller televisions, and for normal screen size growth of 1.5 inches to return.
Television units declined by about 10% year over year while average screen size growth is in line with the 1.5 inches per year trend.
Unit volume for TVs 65 inches and larger increased by a mid-teen percentage, and smaller TVs were down by a mid-teen percentage.
So three quarters through the year, our expectation for TV units being down year over year and screen size growing approximately 1.5 inches are playing out.
That means television units will be within the typical range of 225 million to 235 million units and average screen size will grow about 1.5 inches.
We would expect the average screen size to once again grow 1.5 inches next year.
And since glass pricing is primarily driven by glass supply demand balance, we expect the pricing environment to remain favorable in Q4 and also throughout 2022.
We saw strong growth across the business with sales exceeding $1.1 billion, up 24% year over year and 5% sequentially.
Net income was $139 million, up 21% year over year.
Net income declined 6% sequentially as increased raw material and shipping costs significantly impacted profitability.
In environmental technologies, our third-quarter sales were $385 million, up 2% year over year and down 5% sequentially.
At the start of 2021, global vehicle production was expected to be about 88 million.
By July, the industry was projecting below 85 million.
And given continued chip and component constraints, forecasts now anticipate auto production around 75 million for the year.
We estimate an impact on earnings per share in the third quarter of about $0.02, and we expect additional impact in the fourth quarter.
Specialty materials delivered sales of $556 million, up 15% sequentially and in line with the strong third quarter in 2020 when we introduced Ceramic Shield.
Over that five-year period, we've almost doubled our sales on a base of more than $1 billion.
During the quarter, our glass innovations were featured in 30 new devices, including smartphones, wearables, and laptops.
Life Sciences third-quarter sales were $305 million, up 37% year over year, driven by ongoing demand to support the global pandemic response, continued recovery in the academic and pharmaceutical research labs and strong demand for bioproduction vessels and diagnostic-related consumables.
Our Life Sciences segment is outpacing the overall industry as evidenced by a sales CAGR of 9% over the last three years.
As we look ahead to Q4, we expect core sales to be in the range of $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion and core earnings per share in the range of $0.50 to $0.55.
Since 2019, sales have grown at a 10% CAGR and ahead of the 6% to 8% target.
Our most recent capacity expansions or as we like to call them, build investments are fully ramped, have enabled the $2.5 billion of sales we've added since 2019, and are delivering more than 20% ROIC.
Our aggregate free cash flow generation for 2020 and 2021 is expected to be more than $2.5 billion.
Finally, we remain steadfast in our commitment to investing in growth and extending our leadership while returning excess cash to shareholders through share repurchases and a 10% annual increase in our dividend.
In April, we resumed share buybacks with the Samsung transaction where we repurchased 4% of our fully diluted shares.

Summary:
EPS grew 30% year over year to $0.56.
Second, the market for large-sized TVs is projected to grow at a double-digit compound annual growth rate through 2024.
We've all seen the declines in panel pricing, and we're beginning to see panel maker utilization adjustments.
We are on track to reach $14 billion in sales and over $2 in EPS.
EPS grew 30% year over year to $0.56.
The impact to Corning's results was approximately $40 million in sales and $0.02 of EPS.
For example, we were able to offset a significant portion of elevated freight costs, but resin prices increased again.
Given this ongoing inflationary environment, we have price increases underway across all of our businesses.
In Display Technologies, sales were $956 million, up 2% sequentially and 16% year over year.
And since glass pricing is primarily driven by glass supply demand balance, we expect the pricing environment to remain favorable in Q4 and also throughout 2022.
In environmental technologies, our third-quarter sales were $385 million, up 2% year over year and down 5% sequentially.
As we look ahead to Q4, we expect core sales to be in the range of $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion and core earnings per share in the range of $0.50 to $0.55.