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> But huge R&D investment helped turn the company from an automotive GPS firm to a leader in fitness watches and trackers. My understanding is the meat and pot
by exabrial 2y ago
> But huge R&D investment helped turn the company from an automotive GPS firm to a leader in fitness watches and trackers.
My understanding is the meat and potatoes at Garmin is Aircraft and marine flight instrumentation. Both require an unbelievable amount of [actual] engineering and proof testing, and subsequent certification.
The Automotive GPS was a lucrative market for a brief time, but a pretty big misunderstanding of what the company does at its core.
Fitness trackers was always a market opportunity, and they happen to be really good at it (I've yet to ever run out of battery life on my Garmin Epix Gen2, even after a 5 day expedition using all features and no charging, and using the built-in flashlight at night). They're also pretty ubiquitous in the Bike Computer space.
- izzydata 2y agoI think you are correct here. There seems to be a misunderstanding that Garmin's primary industry was automotive navigation devices due to that brief moment in time. Well before Garmin made automotive devices they were a Avionics and Marine equipment company. They didn't shift away from automotive GPS as much as they continued on their original path of R&D into all things GPS.
- froh 2y agoThe article further down has a diagram (and a reference to the source the Economist) which shows how automotive was 70% of their revenue in 2008 and how outdoor and fitness is ~50% today. they may be highly profitable in aviation and marine and they may develop there first. is that what you mean by core? because revenue-wise the core was automotive in the beginning and now is outdoors and fitness.