Garmin Increases Position In Wearables Market With Device, Community And Third-Party App Tactics

Garmin International Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd. GRMN, announced fresh data that demonstrated its strong and growing position in the wearables market. The company specialized in the design and manufacturing of unique and useful wearables for active lifestyles.

Garmin said it was an early mover and pioneer in the wearables market when it launched the Forerunner 201 in 2003 – its first GPS powered wearable targeting the running market. It shipped over 20 million wearable devices since then. The company added that the Garmin wearables tactics are centered on purpose-built devices for consumers who want to measure and enhance their active lifestyle pursuits, whether it's running, cycling, swimming, golfing, walking, or simply being more active.

The company disclosed that nearly 11 years back, its Connect online community was formed recognizing the value in storing, tracking, analyzing, and sharing of fitness and other data that its customers collect. Currently, its Connect has over 15 million user accounts, with 5 million new users joining in 2015 alone.

Garmin president and CEO, Cliff Pemble, commented, "We are experiencing strong momentum in the wearables market as a result of an intentional focus on key strategies. We believe that wearable devices enable and enhance a broad range of active lifestyles, and we offer purpose-built devices designed specifically for those lifestyles."

He added, "To that we add a compelling online user community where users track their fitness goals and progress over time and motivate themselves and others to achieve even more. Finally, we offer a rich set of third-party apps, widgets, and watch faces that allow users to customize their device making it both useful and fun. Garmin is a leader in the wearables market because we offer a broad and deep range of devices, a powerful user community, and personalization enabled through third-party apps."