Linear 3Q revenue declined 11% YoY

Quarterly revenues of $312.4 million for the third quarter of fiscal year 2012 increased $18.0 million or 6.1% over the previous quarter's revenue of $294.3 million and decreased $40.8 million or 11.6% from $353.2 million reported in the third quarter of fiscal year 2011. Net income of $98.5 million increased $10.6 million or 12% over the second quarter of fiscal year 2012 and decreased $43.1 million or 30% from the third quarter of fiscal year 2011 which benefited from a lower tax rate. Diluted earnings per share of $0.42 per share in the third quarter of fiscal year 2012 increased $0.04 per share or 11% over the second quarter of fiscal year 2012 and declined $0.19 per share or 31% from the third quarter of fiscal year 2011. During the third quarter the Company's cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities increased by $74.3 million to $1.1 billion. A cash dividend of $0.25 per share will be paid on May 30, 2012 to stockholders of record on May 18, 2012. According to Lothar Maier, CEO, “This was a transitional quarter for us as we returned to growth in revenue and profit. Our bookings, which began to improve at the end of last quarter, continued strong throughout the March quarter and we had a positive book to bill ratio. Consequently, we grew revenues by 6% in-line with the mid-point of our guidance. We experienced improvements in each of our major end-markets led by industrial and automotive. Our operating margin of 45% was similar to last quarter. Our third quarter results include Dust Networks, which we acquired in late December 2011. While revenues from Dust in the quarter were not significant, Dust's operating expenses included in our consolidated results had a minor negative impact on operating margins and net income. Given the improvement in our bookings and the broad distribution of this strength across all our major end-markets, we are estimating that we will again grow quarterly revenues sequentially in the 4% to 8% range in our fourth fiscal quarter. We also expect operating income and operating margin to improve.”