The SnO2:Sb thin films (ATO) were deposited on quartz glass by magnetron sputtering. The effects of post growth annealing on preferential orientation, microstructure and functional properties of thin films have been investigated. It was found that the thin films were polycrystalline with the cassiterite tetragonal (rutile type) structure. As the annealing temperature increased from 200 degrees C to 600 degrees C, the crystalline quality of the thin films improved. The texture transition from (2 0 0) to (2 1 1) crystallographic orientations was found as annealing temperature increased to 600 degrees C. This result revealed that the process of abnormal grain growth occurred. However, the crystalline quality was subsequently deteriorated with further increase of the annealing temperature. The obtained ATO thin film annealed at 600 degrees C showed the lowest resistivity of 1.5 x 10(-3) Omega cm with the carrier concentration of 2.11 x 10(20) cm(-3) and hall mobility of 21.37 cm(2) V-1 s(-1) The average optical transmittance was 84.9% in the visible wavelength range from 380 to 780 nm. In addition, the mechanism of the changes of electrical and optical properties at different annealing temperature was proposed. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.