OLATHE (Kansas): Garmin, in its 35th year of operations, is not look ing to be an Apple or a Samsung.
It is instead focused on being Garmin — innovator extraordinaire.
"I think there's only one Apple and Samsung and it would be very difficult for anyone our size to displace them, so we don't try to be Apple or Samsung.
"We try to be Garmin, and the way we are able to do that is by doing a lot more things," Garmin president and chief executive officer Cliff Pemble told journalists in a rare interview at its headquarters last month in conjunction with its 35th anniversary.
The US$5 billion-revenue com pany, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, indeed does a lot more things.
Garmin, a name formed by blend ing the first names of the company's founders, Gary Burrell and Dr Min Kao, started out with one product.
This was a basic navigational aid, known as the GPS 100 in 1991.
Today, it has dozens of categories of product which serve its five busi ness units of outdoor, fitness, avi ation, marine and automotive orig inal equipment manufacturing (OEM), with product models num bering in the thousands.
Its operations, which first started in Olathe, Kansas, currently span 35 countries with manufacturing cen tres across the United States, Eu rope and Asia.
Over the last 35 years, Garmin has pioneered new global position ing system (GPS) navigation and wireless devices and applications designed for people with an active lifestyle.
It was one of the first movers and innovators in the fitness smart watch market, when it launched the world 's first wrist-based GPS trainer, Forerunner® 201, in 2003.
This was an innovation which came about when a group of en gineers, who were also runners, employed by Garmin decided it would be a good idea to create a wearable for runners.
Twenty-one years later, Garmin's team of innovators has come up with every runner level and multiple categories of wearables for every one of its business segments.
From smartwatches for golfers and divers to GPS collars for search and rescue dogs and adventure watches that allow for solar charg ing, it has it all.
And the innovation continues.
Garmin's aviation business segment designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of aircraft avionics solutions both directly into aircraft OEM applications as well as through Garmin's worldwide dealer network for retrofit installations on existing aircraft.
Besides offering integrated flight decks, its team of engineers has also developed automatic flight control systems and safety-en hancing technologies, such as Garmin Autoland that allows autonomous landing of the aircraft in the event the pilot is not able to do so and assist a pilot to get to the nearest airport in the event of the loss of engine power.
As of May 13, about 775 aircraft units equipped with Garmin's Autoland system are flying in the US and Europe.
Garmin's trolling motors for its marine segment is another exam ple of its penchant for innovation.
Pemble said he saw its push into the electronic motors for the boats product category as a natural pro gression for its marine segment given the expertise available and needed for the development.
He added that there were a lot of reasons for the company to jump into the market.
Garmin is a leading manufacturer of recreational marine electronics and a premier cartography supplier.
About 25 per cent of the group's 19,900-strong employees, or asso ciates as they are called at the com pany, are engineers.
As of Jan 5, Garmin has been issued more than 1,900 patents throughout the world and holds more than 1,160 trademark registrations.
"I believe we have gotten very good at (doing a lot more things), because we know how to work in a very high mix environment, we manage teams that work on very different projects and very different markets, which has become a core competency," Pemble said.