In a wireless communication system, the nonlinearity of the power amplifier (PA) in the transmitter is a limiting factor of the system performance. To achieve high efficiency, the PA input signal is driven into the nonlinear region. Signals with large peak-to-power ratio (PAPR) suffer uneven distortion where large signals receive additional distortion. Orthogonal linear transformations, such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation, spread the nonlinear distortion evenly to each data symbol, thus improving the system performance. In this paper, we provide theoretical analysis on the benefit of orthogonal linear transform for a memoryless nonlinear communication system. We show that the multicarrier system based on orthogonal linear transform performs better than the single carrier system in the presence of nonlinearity. Simulation results validate the theoretical analysis.