CSR plc announces unaudited results for the first quarter ended 3 April 2009

This is an edited version of CSR’s financial results announcement for Q1 2009, which is available to download at: http://www.csr.com/results

CSR (LSE: CSR) today announced its unaudited financial results for the first quarter of 2009. Revenues were in line with guidance at $80.6m reflecting continued weak market demand combined with working through the supply chain of stock already held by customers. Net cash balances were $263 million, consistent with the previous quarter. The quarter saw significant interest in CSR’s latest Connectivity Centre products: BC7830, UF6000 and CSR9000, with a number of design wins expected to boost the company’s market share in handsets beginning in the second half of the year.

CSR is leveraging its strength as a leading supplier in Bluetooth with the ongoing development of its Connectivity Centre portfolio. The CSR9000 Connectivity Centre product was the world’s first device to qualify to the Bluetooth v3.0 high-speed specification and integrates GPS, Wi-Fi and FM around a Bluetooth hub - in the industry's smallest package with excellent performance. CSR's approach makes it easier and more cost effective for OEMs to integrate additional functionality in their products without sacrificing cost, PCB space or performance. By following a strategy of Smart Integration, CSR’s Connectivity Centre products are specifically designed to support multiple radios to ensure best in class coexistence.

The quarter has seen strong performance for CSR in design-win share in the handset market.

CSR’s BlueCore7 family is now in mass production as scheduled. With first shipments to CSR's lead customer expected in the third quarter of 2009 and sampling these products with other tier one customers, CSR expects its market share in handsets to increase in the second half of 2009. Encouragingly CSR has received positive responses due to its industry-leading performance, ultra small die size and favourable cost. CSR is confident that the product range will win significant business across a range of OEMs.

CSR’s most recently launched Connectivity Centre products, CSR9000 (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, FM, Bluetooth low energy combo) & UF6000 (the world's smallest 802.11n products), also received extremely positive responses from customers.

UF6026, CSR’s latest Wi-Fi chip which is part of the UF6000 family, is now sampling worldwide and has attracted interest from a number of OEMs. CSR’s UF6000 family is the world’s smallest, low cost solution for embedded 802.11a/b/g and n Wi-Fi, combining high level coexistence and a die size 30% smaller than its competitor’s alternative. At just 16mm-sq, the UF6000 range enables OEMs to integrate Wi-Fi connectivity into their devices where previously cost was prohibitive.

Particular interest has been shown over the quarter in CSR’s breakthrough Connectivity Centre product CSR9000, which has received a very positive response from customers. CSR9000 provides value to customers through size, performance, cost and functionality and is the perfect embodiment of CSR’s Connectivity Centre strategy. CSR9000 boasts strong performance in key areas such as Wi-Fi throughput and high levels of coexistence, and provides customers with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and FM transmit and receive all in a combo offering that takes up only 27mm-sq of silicon whilst the company’s main competitor’s alternative is almost 40% larger in silicon area and does not include GPS.

MusiCore has also had its first design-win into a (low volume) handset for a tier one manufacturer, which gives significant validation of CSR’s technology and proof of concept. CSR expects to begin shipping this product during this quarter. MusiCore is the world’s first fully featured single-chip stereo audio processor + Bluetooth for mobile phones and enables up to 100 hours of music playback.

CSR has continued winning the lion’s share of the mono headset business and all of the stereo headset business. In the first quarter CSR has won in excess of 80% of all qualified Bluetooth headset designs and 100% of all stereo Bluetooth headset designs, which underlines CSR’s continued strength in the headset market. The company’s significant and dedicated R&D investment in this sector of the Bluetooth market ensures that the company is able to offer a wide range of superior products at attractive price points to customers.

In non-cellular applications, consumer demand remains weak, but despite this CSR continues to win new sockets and has recently won a Bluetooth ROM slot with a large US PND manufacturer.

Automotive volumes have held up relatively well thus far as manufacturers try to promote sales by the inclusion of optional extras. CSR has by far the largest market share in this segment demonstrating the company’s continued strength in this market.

More generally interest in Bluetooth technology across a wide variety of applications remains strong and CSR believes that the technology will see even greater adoption.

Joep van Beurden, CEO commented, "As expected, the first quarter was a difficult one with the effects of the global economic recession exacerbated by customer de-stocking programmes. Nevertheless, we delivered revenues towards the upper end of our guidance and continued to generate net cash.

"Operationally, we have successfully aligned our cost base to the prevailing market conditions and have achieved more than the $25 million annualised run-rate of savings we announced at our last set of results. At the same time, we have successfully executed our key new product development programmes and established BC7000, UniFi6000 and CSR9000 in the market.

"Our proposed merger with SiRF is on schedule with completion expected in June. Integration planning is advanced and we are confident in achieving our synergy targets.

"With the SiRF merger we will complete a market-leading position in the key technologies that make up the Connectivity Centre. Together with the strength of our design-win performance and the positive customer reactions to our next generation products, we view the future with confidence."

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About CSR

CSR is the leading global provider of personal wireless technology and its product portfolio covers Bluetooth, GPS, FM and Wi-Fi (IEEE802.11). CSR offers developed hardware/software solutions, based around its silicon platforms, that incorporate fully integrated radio, baseband and microcontroller elements.

CSR’s customers include industry leaders such as Apple, Dell, LG, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Panasonic, RIM, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TomTom and Toshiba.

CSR has its headquarters and offices in Cambridge, UK, and offices in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, India, France, Denmark, Sweden and both Dallas and Detroit in the USA.

More information can be found at www.csr.com