UPDATE 3-TI profit, revenue beat Wall St forecasts

* Q3 revenue $2.88 bln vs Wall St $2.82 bln

* Sees Q4 rev $2.78 bln-$3.02 bln vs Wall St $2.79 bln

* CFO says all segments better than expected in Q3

* TI shares rise almost 3 pct to $24.17 in late trade
(Adds TI comments on demand by region, share price update)

By Sinead Carew

NEW YORK, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Texas Instruments Inc TXN.N
posted better-than-expected third-quarter results on Monday,
citing strong demand from every industry that uses its chips,
from cars to computers and phones.

The chip maker, whose shares rose 2.5 percent, also said
results in the fourth quarter would be stronger than current
forecasts by analysts.

The company said the results showed that customers had
finally stopped running down product inventories -- a practice
that badly depressed demand for chips earlier in the year --
and were ramping up production.

Chief Financial Officer Kevin March said PC, mobile phone
and automotive customers were among those boosting production,
but also noted that it was not unusual to see production
increase in the third quarter in anticipation of the holiday
shopping season.

Seeking to temper expectations, March said holiday demand
could be softer than usual this year.

"Santa Claus tends to come back every year. The question
is, how big is his bag?" March said in an interview. "It's
difficult to think it's going to be real exciting. One would
have to expect it's going to be fairly subdued if for no other
reason than that unemployment remains high."

But at least one analyst said the results and forecast,
which followed a better-than-expected report from chip giant
Intel Corp (INTC.O), suggested that demand had recovered.
[ID:nN1315624]

"It's clear that the recovery for the semiconductor guys is
real and not inventory-driven," said Charter Equity Research
analyst Ed Snyder. "That gives a lot of people hope that we're
not seeing a false start."

The company itself said that while most of its growth came
from Japan and the Asia Pacific region, it also saw
improvements in Europe and the United States for the first time
in several quarters.

It also said the unexpected increase in demand for analog
chips and other products had caused a supply pinch for TI in
certain areas.

For the third quarter, profit fell 4.4 percent to $538
million, or 42 cents per share. That surpassed analysts'
average forecast for profit of 40 cents a share, according to
Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue also fell, dropping 15 percent to $2.88 billion,
but it also beat analyst expectations of $2.82 billion.

TI forecast fourth-quarter earnings per share in a range of
42 to 50 cents on revenue of $2.78 billion to $3.02 billion,
compared with Wall Street expectations for revenue of $2.79
billion.

The company's shares rose 2.8 percent to $24.17 after
closing at $23.52 on the New York Stock Exchange.
(Editing by Paul Thomasch, Gary Hill, Matthew Lewis)