UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549

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FORM 8-K

CURRENT REPORT
Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions:

⃞ Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425)
⃞ Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12)
⃞ Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b))
⃞ Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c))

(d)       Exhibits.

The information presented in this Current Report on Form 8-K may contain forward-looking statements and certain assumptions upon which such forward-looking statements are in part based. Numerous important factors, including those factors identified in Itron, Inc.’s Annual Report on Form 10-K and other of the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the fact that the assumptions set forth in this Current Report on Form 8-K could prove incorrect, could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in such forward-looking statements.

SIGNATURE

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized.

EXHIBIT INDEX

Exhibit 99.1

Itron Announces First Quarter 2011 Results

LIBERTY LAKE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 27, 2011--Itron, Inc. (NASDAQ:ITRI) today reported financial results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2011. Highlights include:

• Quarterly revenues of $564 million;
• Quarterly GAAP diluted EPS of 66 cents;
• Quarterly non-GAAP diluted EPS of 99 cents;
• Quarterly non-GAAP operating income of $66 million;
• Quarterly non-GAAP operating margin of 11.7%;
• Quarterly bookings of $681 million; and
• Record total backlog of $1.75 billion and twelve-month backlog of $989 million.

“We had a great start to the year driven by the continued global success of our advanced solutions for electric, gas and water utilities,” said Malcolm Unsworth, president and CEO. “We ended the quarter with a record backlog of $1.75 billion as a result of very strong bookings, and also improved our operating margin. And we are implementing a new global reorganization to position ourselves to aggressively grow our business and profitability going forward.”

Operations Highlights:

Revenues increased $66 million, or 13.3%, for the quarter compared to the same period in 2010. North America revenues increased $35.4 million, or 14.7%, over the prior year period primarily due to higher shipments of OpenWay meters and modules. Approximately 1.1 million OpenWay units were shipped in the quarter. International revenues increased $30.6 million, or 12.0%, over the prior year period primarily due to increased gas and water advanced metering projects. International’s first quarter revenue included a $3 million favorable effect from foreign currency exchange rates.

Bookings for the quarter included $268 million for a contract with BC Hydro for an end-to-end Itron smart metering solution including OpenWay meters, radio frequency (RF) mesh network with network concentrators, data collection engine and meter data management software.

Gross margin for the quarter was 32.7% which was 1.1% higher than the prior year period due primarily to OpenWay systems in North America. Despite higher material costs, International maintained its gross margin due to a more favorable product mix. Gross margin was also impacted by both a warranty charge of $7.7 million related to product in Brazil and an $8.6 million gain resulting from the recovery of a separate warranty claim.

Non-GAAP operating income for the first quarter increased $16.3 million, or 33%, over the same 2010 period primarily due to increased revenue and gross margin. Operating expenses, excluding amortization of intangibles, were $118.4 million, or 21.0% of revenue, for the quarter compared to $107.6 million, or 21.6% of revenue, in the prior year. The increase was due primarily to increased marketing activity as well as continued investment in research and development for new and enhanced products.

Net income for the first quarter was $27.1 million, or 66 cents per share, compared with net income of $25.3 million, or 62 cents per share in the same period in 2010. Tax expense for the first quarter increased over $18 million as compared with the same period in 2010. The first quarter of 2011 included minimal discrete tax benefits compared with 2010 which included approximately $11 million, or 26 cents, of discrete tax benefits. Despite the increase in tax expense, net income increased over the prior year period primarily due to higher operating income in our North America segment.

Free cash flow for the first quarter decreased $25 million compared with the same period in 2010 primarily due to increased incentive plan compensation payments. During the first quarter of 2011, we made over $50 million in debt repayments.

Non-GAAP Financial Information:

To supplement our consolidated financial statements presented in accordance with GAAP, we use certain non-GAAP financial measures, including non-GAAP operating expense, non-GAAP operating income, non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP diluted EPS, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow. We provide these non-GAAP financial measures because we believe they provide greater transparency and represent supplemental information used by management in its financial and operational decision making. Specifically, these non-GAAP financial measures are provided to enhance investors’ overall understanding of our current financial performance and our future anticipated performance by excluding infrequent costs, particularly those associated with acquisitions. We exclude certain infrequent costs, particularly those associated with acquisitions, in our non-GAAP financial measures as we believe the net result is a measure of our core business. Non-GAAP performance measures should be considered in addition to, and not as a substitute for, results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Finally, our non-GAAP financial measures may be different from those reported by other companies. A more detailed discussion of why we use non-GAAP financial measures, the limitations of using such measures, and reconciliations between non-GAAP and the nearest GAAP financial measures are included in this press release.

Earnings Conference Call:

Itron will host a conference call to discuss the financial results contained in this release at 2:00 p.m. (PDT) on April 27, 2011. The call will be webcast in a listen only mode. Webcast information and conference call materials will be made available in the “Investors/Investor Events” section of Itron’s website (www.itron.com) prior to the start of the call. The webcast replay will begin after the conclusion of the live call and will be available for two weeks. A telephone replay of the call will also be available approximately one hour after the conclusion of the live call, for 48 hours, and is accessible by dialing (888) 203-1112 (Domestic) or (719) 457-0820 (International), entering passcode #5550136.

About Itron:

At Itron, we’re dedicated to delivering end-to-end smart grid and smart distribution solutions to electric, gas and water utilities around the globe. Our company is the world’s leading provider of smart metering, data collection and utility software systems, with nearly 8,000 utilities worldwide relying on our technology to optimize the delivery and use of energy and water. Our offerings include electricity, gas, water and heat meters; network communication technology; collection systems and related software applications; and professional services. To realize your smarter energy and water future, start here: www.itron.com.

For additional information, contact:

Statements of operations, segment information, balance sheets, cash flow statements and reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable financial measures follow.

Itron, Inc.

About Non-GAAP Financial Measures

The accompanying press release contains non-GAAP financial measures. To supplement our consolidated financial statements, which are prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, we use certain non-GAAP financial measures, including non-GAAP operating expense, non-GAAP operating income, non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP diluted EPS, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow. The presentation of this financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. For more information on these non-GAAP financial measures please see the table captioned “Reconciliations of Non-GAAP Financial Measures to Most Directly Comparable GAAP Financial Measures.”

We use these non-GAAP financial measures for financial and operational decision making and as a means for determining executive compensation. Management believes that these non-GAAP financial measures provide meaningful supplemental information regarding our performance and ability to service debt by excluding certain expenses that may not be indicative of our recurring core operating results. These non-GAAP financial measures facilitate management’s internal comparisons to our historical performance as well as comparisons to our competitors’ operating results. Our executive compensation plans exclude non-cash charges related to amortization of intangibles and non-recurring discrete cash and non-cash charges that are infrequent in nature such as purchase accounting adjustments or extinguishment of debt gains and losses. We believe that both management and investors benefit from referring to these non-GAAP financial measures in assessing our performance and when planning, forecasting, and analyzing future periods. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors because they provide greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by management in its financial and operational decision making and because they are used by our institutional investors and the analyst community to help them analyze the health of our business.

Non-GAAP operating expense and non-GAAP operating income – We define non-GAAP operating expense as operating expense excluding the expense related to the amortization of intangible assets. We define non-GAAP operating income as operating income excluding the expense related to the amortization of intangible assets. We consider these non-GAAP financial measures to be useful metrics for management and investors because they exclude the effect of expenses that are related to previous acquisitions. By excluding these expenses we believe that it is easier for management and investors to compare our financial results over multiple periods and analyze trends in our operations. For example, expenses related to amortization of intangible assets are now decreasing, which is improving GAAP operating margins, yet the improvement in GAAP operating margins due to this lower expense is not necessarily reflective of an improvement in our core business. There are some limitations related to the use of non-GAAP operating expense and non-GAAP operating income versus operating expense and operating income calculated in accordance with GAAP. Non-GAAP operating expense and non-GAAP operating income exclude some costs that are recurring. Additionally, the expenses that we exclude in our calculation of non-GAAP operating expense and non-GAAP operating income may differ from the expenses that our peer companies exclude when they report the results of their operations. We compensate for these limitations by providing specific information about the GAAP amounts we have excluded from our non-GAAP operating expense and non-GAAP operating income and evaluating non-GAAP operating expense and non-GAAP operating income together with GAAP operating expense and GAAP operating income.

Non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP diluted EPS – We define non-GAAP net income as net income excluding the expenses associated with amortization of intangible assets, amortization of debt placement fees, and amortization of convertible debt discount. We define non-GAAP diluted EPS as non-GAAP net income divided by the weighted average shares, on a diluted basis, outstanding during each period. We consider these financial measures to be useful metrics for management and investors for the same reasons that we use non-GAAP operating income. The same limitations described above regarding our use of non-GAAP operating income apply to our use of non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP diluted EPS. We compensate for these limitations by providing specific information regarding the GAAP amounts excluded from these non-GAAP measures and evaluating non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP diluted EPS together with GAAP net income and GAAP diluted EPS.

Adjusted EBITDA – We define adjusted EBITDA as net income (a) minus interest income, (b) plus interest expense, depreciation expense and amortization of intangible asset expense, and (c) exclude the tax expense or benefit. We believe that providing this financial measure is important for management and investors to understand our ability to service our debt as it is a measure of the cash generated by our core business. Management uses adjusted EBITDA as a performance measure for executive compensation. A limitation to using adjusted EBITDA is that it does not represent the total increase or decrease in the cash balance for the period and the measure includes some non-cash items and excludes other non-cash items. Additionally, the items that we exclude in our calculation of adjusted EBITDA may differ from the items that our peer companies exclude when they report their results. Management compensates for this limitation by providing a reconciliation of this measure to GAAP net income.

Free cash flow – We define free cash flow as net cash provided by operating activities less cash used for acquisitions of property, plant, and equipment. We believe free cash flow provides investors with a relevant measure of liquidity and a useful basis for assessing our ability to fund our operations and repay our debt. The same limitations described above regarding our use of non-GAAP operating income apply to our use of free cash flow. We compensate for these limitations by providing specific information regarding the GAAP amounts and reconciling to free cash flow.

The accompanying tables have more detail on the GAAP financial measures that are most directly comparable to the non-GAAP financial measures and the related reconciliations between these financial measures.

CONTACT:
Itron, Inc.
Vice President, Investor Relations
Ranny Dwiggins, 509-891-3443
ranny.dwiggins@itron.com