SANTA CRUZ, CA. – May 2, 2006 - Plantronics, Inc., (NYSE: PLT) today announced record revenues of $750 million for fiscal year 2006, an increase of 34% from $560 million in fiscal 2005. Of the $190 million in revenue growth, $121 million was the result of the acquisition of Altec Lansing whose revenues are included in our Audio Entertainment Group (AEG) segment. For the year as a whole, operating income was $110.4 million compared to $126.6 million in fiscal 2005, and operating margin declined to 14.7% from 22.6% last year.   Earnings per share were $1.66 in comparison to $1.92 in fiscal 2005.  Non-GAAP earnings per share, which exclude the impact of purchase accounting charges related to the acquisition of Altec Lansing, were $1.79 compared to $1.92 in fiscal 2005.

Fourth quarter net revenues increased 40% to $207 million compared to $148 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2005, with $38 million of the $59 million in growth derived from Altec Lansing products.  Plantronics’ diluted earnings per share were $0.43 for the fourth quarter compared to $0.51 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2005.     In total, revenues and earnings per share were within the range of guidance we provided on January 24, 2006.  At that time, we estimated revenues for the fourth quarter to be within the range of $200 to $210 million and earnings per share to be within the range of $0.39 to $0.44.  Operationally, gross and therefore operating margins were lower in our Audio Communications Group (ACG) segment than we planned due to the overall product mix and continued aggressive pricing in the intensely competitive Bluetooth mobile headset market, and higher requirements for excess and obsolete inventory.

As a result of the R&D that we are conducting in Mexico at our Plamex Design Center and tax incentives under the Maquiladora program that we qualified for, we had a lower effective tax rate in the quarter than we had anticipated.  The effective rate of 24.5% for the quarter brought our full year rate to 27.9%.  The lower tax rate in the quarter benefited EPS by approximately $0.02.   Earnings per share in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2005 also benefited from a lower effective tax rate than had prevailed during the first three quarters of fiscal 2005.

Non-GAAP earnings per share for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2005, which exclude the impact of purchase accounting charges related to the acquisition of Altec Lansing, were $0.45 in comparison to $0.51 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2005.

Ken Kannappan, President and CEO of Plantronics, noted, “Our market opportunities are favorable and demand for our brands remains excellent.  For the year as a whole, our ACG segment grew 12.5% to $630 million on the strength of our wireless headset offerings both for the office and for Bluetooth mobile applications.  Wireless office headset system net revenues exceeded $150 million in fiscal 2006, up from $72 million in fiscal 2005.  This achievement was capped by the milestone of shipping our one millionth CS50 unit in the fourth quarter, a product that has been on the market only a little over two years.”

Bluetooth net revenues were up significantly for the fiscal year as a result of substantially strengthening our position in the Bluetooth mobile market with an award winning set of new products.  For example, net revenues reached $28.7 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006, up 144% from $11.7 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2005.

The strong growth in wireless office and consumer Bluetooth in fiscal 2006 was partially offset by a nearly 50% decline in sales of corded mobile headsets and flat sales of professional grade corded headsets for office and contact center applications.  Growth in PC headsets was also strong, driven by the increasing use of VoIP by consumers whereas headsets for gaming consoles declined after an unusually strong showing in fiscal 2005.  Altec Lansing, reported in our Audio Entertainment Group segment, contributed more than $120 million in net revenues, more than $10 million in GAAP operating income and more than $20 million in non-GAAP operating income during the roughly eight month period in fiscal 2006 since the acquisition closed.

“These categories are burgeoning because wireless communication and entertainment devices provide real value to people – the ability to multi-task, the ability to move about freely,   the ability to enjoy high quality audio for music wherever you happen to be, and the fundamental ability to stay connected yet be free,” said Kannappan.  “Lifestyle and workplace needs are changing, and mobility and convergence are two central causes of that change. The opportunities these changes provide are abundant and we’ve taken many steps to position ourselves to capitalize on those opportunities.”

Significant investments in fiscal 2006 included:

• the $165 million acquisition of Altec Lansing for long-term positioning in the convergence of audio and entertainment;
• approximately $11 million national integrated marketing campaign targeted at office wireless, the Company’s best long-term value creation opportunity;
• construction of our China factory and design center with a building capital cost of $18 million and total overall project capital cost of $23 million, for lower cost, especially for consumer products;
• $8 million for the acquisition of Octiv, now operating under the name VolumeLogic, to further strengthen our expertise in acoustics, DSP and sound excellence broadly; and
• approximately $2 million in incremental R&D and other costs to make our European Union products RoHS compliant by the upcoming July 1, 2006 deadline.

These investments combined with mix and the volatile nature of competitive markets strained Company resources and led to challenges in execution which manifested themselves in the form of lower overall profits in fiscal 2006 than fiscal 2005.  However, the Company was solidly profitable earning $81 million in net income and generating $78 million in operating cash flow.

“Profit performance was certainly lower than our expectations, yet we feel we made significant strategic progress over the course of the year and are better positioned for the future.  These investments are not entirely behind us, and in fact we intend to increase marketing expenditures for the wireless office segment in fiscal 2007 to a total of approximately $19 million.  That said, we plan to resume executing to a profitable growth strategy in FY07,” Kannappan concluded.

ACG Segment

Fourth quarter net revenues of $169 million were up 14% in comparison to the year ago quarter and were up 4.6% sequentially.   Revenue growth compared to the year ago quarter was driven by demand for wireless headsets, both for office applications and for mobile Bluetooth devices.  This growth was partially offset by declines in sales of our   mobile corded, OCC corded, and Clarity products.   Gross margin was down 6.9 percentage points which was lower by $1.1 million compared to the year ago quarter.  The key drivers behind the decline in gross margin were:

• Product mix and continued pricing pressure, especially on Bluetooth consumer headsets (~4 percentage points),
• Higher provisions for E&O (1.3 percentage points),
• Manufacturing variances in Plamex (0.8 percentage points), and
• Manufacturing overhead in our China facility which is not fully utilized as production is in the early stages of ramping up (0.7 percentage points).

During the quarter, ACG completed development and launched a number of excellent new products.  Reactions have been very positive to the new wireless office headset systems, including the SupraPlus Wireless, CS70, and Voyager 510S with WindSmart, and on the consumer side, the incorporation of DSP technology into the award-winning Discovery 645 headset.

AEG Segment

Fourth quarter net revenues of approximately $38 million were down from $61 million in the seasonally strong December quarter.    We anticipated revenues to decline sharply in the March quarter based on Altec Lansing’s historic seasonality and the seasonality of most consumer audio companies.  The sequential revenue decrease of $23 million or 38% was driven by declines in sales of the inMotion line of portable speakers for use with iPODs and other MP3 players as well as declines in powered speakers for use with PC’s.  We believe our sales were down in line with overall industry sales and that our share position remained relatively stable in comparison to the December quarter.  GAAP operating income was $1.7 million or 4.5% of revenues in the quarter compared to non-GAAP operating income of $3.6 million or 9.5% of revenues.  The non-GAAP measure excludes the impact of purchase accounting charges of $1.9 million in the quarter.

AEG also developed a number of innovative new products, including the rugged iM9 portable iPOD speakers and the XM3120 speakers for XM-satellite based radio receivers.

Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Highlights

“Our earnings coupled with reductions in accounts receivable enabled us to generate cash flow from operations of approximately $32 million in the quarter bringing the full year total to $78 million,” noted Barbara Scherer, SVP & CFO of Plantronics.  “We paid our line of credit down by $10 million during the quarter and increased our total cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities by $18.5 million in comparison to the December quarter.”

Inventory was relatively flat in comparison to the December quarter with turns decreasing from 4.8 to 4.6.  Accounts receivable declined by $8.2 million as a result of collections exceeding net revenues during a seasonally slow March quarter for Altec Lansing partially offset by growth in the ACG business and ACG receivables.     During the quarter, we repurchased 26,500 shares of our common stock for a total of approximately $0.8 million at a weighted average purchase price of $28.82, and 175,000 shares of our common stock remain authorized for repurchase under the 17^th share repurchase program approved by the Board of Directors.  Over the course of the fiscal year, 2,197,500 shares for a total of $70.4 million were repurchased at an average purchase price of $32.03.  Stockholders received a total of $9.5 million in dividends during the course of the fiscal year.

“We remain committed to returning cash flows in excess of business requirements to stockholders in the form of share repurchases when they are expected to be strongly accretive and through regular quarterly dividend payments,” concluded Scherer.

Business Outlook

The following statements are based on current expectations. Many of these statements are forward-looking, and actual results may differ materially.  Our business is inherently highly difficult to forecast and the rapid growth of the more variable revenue streams increases the difficulty of projecting our results.   Our bookings rate thus far in the quarter does not fully support the revenue forecast we are providing, and we are expecting at least some pick-up from the level of orders we have received to date.

In general, we have a “book and ship” business model whereby we ship most orders to our customers within 48 hours of our receipt of those orders, and we thus cannot rely on the level of backlog to provide visibility into potential future revenues.

The below estimates for earnings in the first quarter include the ongoing purchase accounting charges from the Altec acquisition and our other ongoing purchase accounting charges from earlier acquisitions.  Since these charges are expected to continue for many years, we will not be reporting GAAP versus non-GAAP comparisons related to these charges for future fiscal periods.

Our first quarter guidance includes the estimated impact of expensing stock-based compensation from the adoption of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 123 (Revised), Share-Based Payment, (FAS 123(R)) and will be reflected in our operating results beginning with the first quarter of fiscal 2007, which commenced April 1, 2006. As result, we will begin reporting GAAP versus non-GAAP for stock-based compensation expense. We believe this is appropriate to enhance an overall understanding of our comparative financial performance and our prospects for the future.  We also believe that our estimates of expense and the earnings per share impact from equity compensation pursuant to FAS 123(R) are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties which we have not faced before, including estimating the forfeiture rate, estimating the impact on diluted shares outstanding pursuant to the Treasury Stock method, and the tax rate which will apply to the pre-tax expense, among other factors.

Based on all of the foregoing, we are currently expecting the following financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2007:

• Net revenues for the first quarter of fiscal 2007 to be in the range of $195 - $205 million
  • Within this estimate, we expect AEG net revenues to decline sequentially and for ACG net revenues to either decline somewhat or to grow slightly. Altec Lansing’s June quarter has historically been its lowest of the calendar year and we believe it is likely that this pattern will continue.
• Non-GAAP consolidated tax rate to be in the range of 25-27%
• The EPS cost of equity compensation pursuant to FAS 123(R) to be approximately $0.04 - $0.06
• Non-GAAP earnings per share for the first quarter of fiscal 2007 to be in the range of $0.28 - $0.33.
• GAAP earnings per share of approximately $0.22 to $0.29

Longer-term Business Model. During fiscal 2006, we did not meet our goal of achieving a 20% operating margin on our ACG business, although we did come within the 15-20% operating margin target for the Company as a whole after excluding $5.5 million in certain non-recurring purchase accounting charges that affected AEG in the second and third quarters of fiscal 2006.   Given recent trends in our business and industry, including a flat to down trend on revenues derived from professional grade corded headsets, the rapid growth of the Bluetooth consumer market with continued intense price competition and other factors such as generally shorter product life cycles, we are adjusting our long-term target business model to an operating margin goal of 15-18% for the total Company prior to the impact of option expensing pursuant to FAS123(R), although our execution and overall cost effectiveness must improve markedly from current levels to achieve this range.

Plantronics does not intend to update these targets during the quarter or to report on its progress toward these targets. Plantronics will not comment on these targets to analysts or investors except by its next press release announcing its first quarter fiscal year 2007 results or by other public disclosure. Any statements by persons outside Plantronics speculating on the progress of the first quarter of the fiscal year will not be based on internal Company information and should be assessed accordingly by investors. The statements do not reflect the potential impact of any mergers or acquisitions that may be completed after the date of this release.

Conference Call Scheduled to Discuss Financial Results

Plantronics has scheduled a conference call to discuss the contents of this release. The conference call will take place today, Tuesday, May 2 at 2:00 PM (PDT). All interested investors and potential investors in Plantronics stock are invited to participate. To listen to the call, please dial in five to ten minutes prior to the scheduled starting time and refer to the “Plantronics Conference Call.”  Participants from North America should call (888) 301-8736 and other participants should call (706) 634-7260.

A replay of the call with the conference ID #6178075 will be available for 72 hours at (800) 642-1687 for callers from North America and at (706) 645-9291 for all other callers. The conference call will also be simultaneously web cast at www.plantronics.com under Investor Relations, and the web cast of the conference call will remain available at the Plantronics Web site for thirty days.

SAFEHARBOR

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.  Specific forward-looking statements include: (1)   Our intention to increase marketing expenditures for the wireless office segment in fiscal 2007 to approximately $19 million, (2) Our plan to resume executing to a profitable growth strategy in fiscal 2007, (3) We remain committed to returning cash flow in excess of business requirements to shareholders in the form of share repurchases when they are expected to be strongly accretive and through regular quarterly dividend payments, (4) Estimated financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2007, (5) Our long term operating margin goals, and (6) Our long-term expectations for lower costs, especially for consumer products, in our new China facility.

Because forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and are based on current information and management judgment, actual results could differ materially from those projected.

Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected are:

• Demand overall for our products is difficult to forecast;
• The mix of demand for each of our products is difficult to predict and unexpected mix makes margins difficult to forecast;
• We may have inadequate inventory to meet the demand for particular products or we may acquire too much inventory for certain products.  The latter issue increases the risk of future inventory write-downs;
• Our operating results are highly dependent on the volume and timing of orders received during the quarter, which are difficult to predict.  This is particularly true because we are also often presented with a significant number of transactions for large volumes of product that may materialize or fail to materialize in a particular period;
• The foregoing difficulties are exacerbated in periods such as the present when a significant portion of our revenue is derived from new products and the difficulties of forecasting appropriate volumes of production are even more tenuous;
• Pricing pressures in the market for our products can make margins difficult to project;
• We must incur a large portion of our costs in advance of receiving firm sales orders because we must plan research and production, order components and enter into development, sales and marketing, and other operating commitments prior to obtaining firm commitments from our customers;
• If our projections of the volumes of certain products are low, we incur significant expenses such as air freight, expediting and other manufacturing variances as we attempt to make up for the shortfall, which are difficult to forecast;
• Fluctuations in currency exchange rates impact our revenues and profitability because we report our financial statements in U.S. dollars whereas a significant portion of our sales to customers and transactions with vendors are transacted in other currencies for which we may not completely hedge our risk New accounting pronouncements are occurring regularly and judgments for upcoming financial categorization may not always be accurately projected;
• A softening of the level of market demand for our products due to economic or other factors beyond our control; and
• Variations in sales and profits in higher tax, as compared to lower tax, jurisdictions.

For more information concerning these and other possible risks, please refer to the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on May 31, 2005, quarterly reports filed on Form 10-Q and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as recent press releases. These filings can be accessed over the Internet at http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html

Financial Summaries

The following related charts are provided:

• Summary Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements
• Summary Unaudited Condensed Statements of Operations by Segment
• Unaudited GAAP to Non-GAAP Statements of Operations for Plantronics, Inc
• Unaudited GAAP to Non-GAAP Statements of Operations Reconciliation for the Audio Entertainment Group
• Summary Unaudited Statements of Operations and Related Data

About Plantronics

In 1969, a Plantronics headset carried the historic first words from the moon: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”  Since then, Plantronics has become the headset of choice for mission-critical applications such as air traffic control, 911 dispatch, and the New York Stock Exchange.  Today, this history of Sound Innovation™ is the basis for every product we build for the office, contact center, personal mobile, entertainment and residential markets. The Plantronics family of brands includes Plantronics, Altec Lansing, Clarity, and Volume Logic. For more information, go to www.plantronics.com or call (800) 544-4660.

Altec Lansing, Clarity, Plantronics, Sound Innovation, and Volume Logic are trademarks or registered trademarks of Plantronics, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.