The 6% decrease in sales revenues quarter-on-quarter was mainly due to a 3% decline in wafers shipments while average sales revenue per wafer decreased by 3% mainly resulting from a higher backend cost that lead to a lower sales price for wafers shipped in the third quarter. Gross margin for the quarter was 53%, operating margin was 52%, and net margin was 57%.

Bit shipments in the third quarter slightly down by about 1.7% quarter-on-quarter, which is in line with the company's previous guidance. The company expects bit shipments to be flat for the fourth quarter sequentially in its continued effort to optimize its manufacturing efficiency in concurrence with the transfer activities for 20nm technology.

Year-to-date capital expenditures on a book-entry basis were NTD 11.5 billion as of the end of September 2014, and the company's guidance for year 2014 capital expenditures remains at approximately NTD 22 billion.

In 2015, the company expects to spend approximately 50 billion with the target of converting about 80% of its total wafer-start capacity to 20nm technology by the end of next year.