200m Garmins and a Good Year For Shimano

With corporate headquarters in Switzerland, Garmin (NASDAQ:GRMN) have just announced that they have sold their 200 millionth GPS device. That includes car, marine and aviation devices as well as sports devices.

Source: businesswire

It took Garmin 6 years to sell their last 100 million devices. The first 100 million took 23 years ie from their founding in 1989 to 2012.

In other news, a decline in the cycle market seems to be somewhat unfounded with Shimano coming in with some solid figures.

Source: Shimano.com Q3

Whilst the Japanese company Shimano are into rowing and fishing BIG time, most of us here know them for the exploits on two wheels. Here is their commentary from their Q3 reports on cycling components:

• In Europe, with the stable weather continuing through the summer season, retail sales of completed
  bicycles, mainly sport E-BIKE, stayed robust and distributor inventories of bicycles remained at a slightly
  lower level, though they were in an appropriate range.
• In North America, retail sales of completed bicycles were on par with an average year, and distributor
  inventories remained at an appropriate level.
• In China, retail sales of completed bicycles remained feeble and retail sales of low-end and middlerange
  bicycles continued to be sluggish. On the other hand, bike sharing is facing a period of realignment
  and the number of products supplied to the market has stabilized, thereby distributor inventories remained
  at an appropriate level.
• With regard to the other emerging markets, Southeast Asia as a whole lacked vigor although retail sales
  of completed bicycles showed signs of a gradual recovery in Indonesia. In South America, consumption
  showed signs of slowdown due to the effects of continuing currency depreciation and political instability
  in Brazil and Argentina. Distributor inventories were at an appropriate level both in Southeast Asia and
  South America.
• In the Japanese market, although retail sales of sports bicycles and community bicycles remained
  sluggish owing partly to the unseasonable weather conditions persisting since the beginning of the year,
  sales of E-BIKE as a whole increased, and particularly, sport E-BIKE has gained more attention.
• Distributor inventories remained at an appropriate level.
• Under these market conditions, the new 105 Series, which is one of the high-end road bike components,
  were well received in the market.
• As a result, net sales from this segment increased 2.2% from the same period of the previous year to
  199,961 million yen, and operating income decreased 0.1% to 41,052 million yen.