Garmin

Garmin is a Swiss company that develops consumer, aviation, and marine technologies for the Global Positioning System (GPS). It was founded in 1989 by Gerry Burrell and Min Kao in Lenexa, Kansas as ProNav, and in 2010 was incorporated in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, as the headquarters and successor to Garmin Cayman, which until then, had served as a holding company for Garmin corporation. Though their claim to fame came from their pioneering of marine and handheld GPS' for the US Army, they have since expanded into the commercial market focusing on the design, manufacturing, and marketing of a diverse family of hand-held, portable, and fixed navigation and communications products. According to the company, Garmin is a leader in providing “navigation, communication, information devices and applications, most of which are enabled by GPS technology”. Garmin’s stated goal in creating these devices is to enrich the lives of their customers, by providing high quality products that create value for consumers. Classified as a technology and scientific instruments company, it operates in five business sectors which serve the marine, outdoor, fitness, automotive, and aviation markets. The company advances the idea of their superiority in value and performance, ease of use, innovation, and ergonomics of its products, and offers an expansive array of solutions across its various segments. As a result of the variety in the nature of the products and types of customers they serve, the segments are managed and analyzed separately. Garmin products are sold in approximately 100 countries through a worldwide network of approximately 4,000 independent dealers, as well as through larger consumer product distributors such as Amazon.com, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Costco. In addition to these distribution channels, Garmin has several key relationships with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), which are of particular importance in the automotive, marine, and aviation