what you should know about Garmin
Garmin was founded in 1989 by two Electrical engineers Gary Burrell and Dr. By Min Kao. The name Garmin is gotten from the first letters of their names Gary and Min. Gary Burrell first showed interest in integration and is credited with designing the first combination of navigation and communications radio for general aviation while he was still at King Radio. Garmin Ltd is considered one of the largest public companies in the world according to Forbes with 18,000 employees.
Inventions in the late 1990s
Garmin is among the leading brands in outdoor technology and the field of sports. Over the years the brand has offered a lot of products, including fitness trackers, cycling computers, sports watches, and outdoor navigation devices. The brand invests in research and development to keep its product at the cutting edge of sport and technology. Garmin launched its first product the GPS 100AVD in January 1991. It was meant for boaters and pilots of small planes. After that Garmin also introduced another GPS unit for pilots called the GPS 95. In the late 1990s, Garmin turned its attention to the automotive market with two handheld units GPS III launched in 1997, The device displays the position of the driver and the destination in which the driver is heading on the map.
The next project they did was a waterproof mobile phone with a GPS receiver. The brand also expanded beyond GPS products and introduced a Mode C transponder (A device for communicating a plane’s position to air traffic controllers and an intercom. The company also have manufacturing operations in Taiwan and a sale office in England.
Public in 2000s
In 2000 Garmin had sold over three million GPS devices and was producing over 50 different models the company’s products were sold in over 1000 countries and were carried by 2500 independent distributors the company In early 2000 through a process known as Selective Availability the Defense Department limited the use of GPS technology to prevent the device from being used to guide terminations and weapons. This resulted in an increased interest in GPS, Before then Garmin Ltd a Cayman Islands-based company was created in July 2000 Garmin Ltd became a public company/brand on the 8th of December 2000.
The company keep on researching and came up with two dozen new products in 2001. Nevertheless both the overall economy and aviation market experienced a metropolitan following the terrorist attack on the 11th of September in the United state. Garmin’s product targeted a large number of users from commercial pilots, to sportsmen, to fishermen. The Co-founder of the company Gary Burrell retired as c0-CEO on 24th August 2002 After that the company then employed over 1400 people.
Worldwide Companies
Garmin has branches in different countries including USA, UK, and Taiwan, It operates formerly in Belgium, Norway, Spain, and Canada.
In 2003 it was reported that GPS began to hit the mass market after the acquisition of UPS Aviation Technologies inc, It is a subsidiary of United parcel service. The acquired Brand changed its name to Garmin AT Inc and continued its operation as a subsidiary of Garmin International Inc.
Corporate activity
In 2006 Garmin launched a new corporate logo and released all of its software for Mac OS X, and the launching of its first retail store in Chicago.
in 2015 they acquired Ikubu Ltd. to backtrack on the bicycle lower power radar system
In 2019 the brand/company acquired Tacx which is a Dutch manufacturer of indoor bike trainers, accessories, and training indoor applications and software.
in 2021 the company acquired a Scottsdale AZ based company, AeroData which provides aircraft performance software
