National Instruments Reports Preliminary Q4 Revenue Estimate of $277M vs $292M Est

National Instruments NATI today announced that its preliminary estimate for fourth-quarter revenue is a new quarterly record of $277 million, an 11 percent year-over-year increase compared to Q4 2010 and $3 million, or 1 percent, below the low-end of the guidance that the company provided on Oct. 26, 2011. Non-GAAP revenue for Q4 is expected to be approximately $279 million. Sequentially, the company saw the greatest reduction in year-over-year revenue growth in Europe, where revenue growth in US dollars dropped from 25 percent year-over-year in Q3 to 3 percent in Q4. In Asia and in the Americas year-over-year organic revenue growth in Q4 was approximately 10 percent. Including acquisitions, year-over-year revenue growth in the Americas was approximately 20 percent. "While it is clear that the industrial economy, especially in Europe, experienced a slowdown in Q4, we believe the diversity of our business and the solid execution of our sales force allowed us to continue to gain market share," said James Truchard, NI president, co-founder and CEO. "Going forward, we will be very disciplined in managing our expenses, while ensuring we continue to serve the growing industries that are fundamental to the needs of society such as energy, medical, communications, and academic." NI graphical system design products, which represent approximately 95 percent of the company's product portfolio, had approximately 14 percent year-over-year revenue growth in Q4 2011. Sales of NI instrument control products, which represented approximately 5 percent of NI revenue in the quarter, were down approximately 15 percent year-over-year in Q4 2011. NI currently expects that GAAP fully diluted earnings per share (EPS) will be in the range of $0.19 to $0.20 per share for Q4 with non-GAAP fully diluted EPS to be in the range of $0.26 to $0.27 per share.