The Garmin Empire Will Crumble. Here's How, And When It Starts.

So it's not a question of if the empire will crumble, but when and how.

You will not see it in the share price next year, in the next successful Fenix launch later this year, on the next earnings call, or in the next set of headlines about Apple's struggles in China. Cracks are quieter than that, but they are already visible if you know where to look.

Garmin is having its best-ever years, and that is exactly why now is the time to read this.

Why Read This Now, When Garmin Is Clearly Winning?

Numbers first.

Consolidated revenue of $6.30 billion in 2024, up 20%. Record again in 2025 at $7.25 billion, up 15%. Fitness segment growth in the low thirties two years running, taking that segment past $2 billion in revenue for the first time. Volumes up, not just prices, with most new fitness customers new to the brand. Operating margins expanded to 25%. Stock at all-time highs. Execution under Cliff Pemble has been excellent. Product cadence is the strongest in the company's history. None of that is in question.

And the pipeline supports the same picture. Expected Garmin innovations this year and next probably include:

• A Whoop competitor, CIRQA
• A move towards taking on Strava as a social platform
• New strength physiology metrics
• New strength training subscription tiers
• New muscle oxygen hardware
• New HUD hardware, either for cycling, running or swimming
• Fenix 9.

Peak Garmin is yet to hit.

The argument is that none of this changes the underlying structural arithmetic. Garmin invests heavily. R&D rose to $1.13 billion in 2025, around 15% of revenue, well above most of its peers. The question is not whether Garmin spends. It is what the spending buys. Most of it goes into incremental hardware refinement, sensor iteration, and feature breadth in categories Garmin already owns. From observable proxies, we see that comparatively little goes into the layers where the next decade actually plays out: AI interpretation, medical regulatory, bundled services, and the data-portability infrastructure that increasingly sits between the customer and the device.

Some empires fall from visible weakness. Others fall from peak strength, with full coffers and excellent execution, because spending is committed to extending the present rather than building the future. That is the more dangerous pattern, and where Garmin sits today.

The Cracks Are Visible. None Are Material Yet.

Most of the seven cracks set out further below have begun to show, and some have already provoked these reactive moves from Garmin HQ:

• Connect+ subscriptions launched in March 2025
• Defensive software walls, e.g. around strength training
• The new Thailand facility is positioned as a Taiwan-plus-one manufacturing hedge
• The rumoured Cirqa, a Whoop-like display-free band
• The recent CardiacSense patent settlement that clears the runway for deeper medical-grade features

Each of these is Garmin reacting to a force that did not exist in this form three years ago. None have yet ruffled the company's financial feathers as a missed quarter or a cut to guidance. The interesting question is which one becomes obvious first, and when.

The cracks fall into three broad categories.

1. Starting now without hurting the numbers:

• AI interpretation. This is the layer that will increasingly sit between the customer and the device, replacing traditional app features like charts and notifications with chat interfaces or agentic feedback.
• Bundle economics. Apple and Google offer health features as part of subscription packages that consumers already pay for. Garmin has no bundle to speak of and will find it difficult to put one together.

2. Slow-compounding shifts are visible in retrospect rather than in any single quarter:

• Aggregator platforms. Apple Health and the new tools that connect Garmin data to ChatGPT and Claude make hardware switching near-frictionless. With apps replaced by layers of sports and wellness intelligence in the AI models, the capture device becomes a commodity.
• Medical regulatory positioning. Clearances and clinical pathways are forming around the major wearable platforms, with Garmin competing but trailing on breadth. Sports data is easy and commoditised. Medical-grade data is elusive and protected.
• Cohort replacement. First-time wearable buyers default to a non-sports watch like the Apple Watch or an Oura smart ring rather than a Forerunner.

3. Slower still but happening anyway:

• Brand-signal erosion. The Fenix is one option among many that looks good on a professional wrist, and the Forerunner is one among many that looks good on a sporting wrist. Garmin's brand signal is good, but many others now compete for the same wrist real estate.
• The pincer. Apple's services moat and sporting competence above, the cheaper Chinese cohort below, the mid-tier squeezed between them, with Garmin at the upper edge.

Then there is the eighth issue, which is not a crack at all. It is a rare event, a Black Swan with far-reaching consequences. A change in relations across the Taiwan Strait.

The Pincer Is The Shape Of The Next Decade

Apple and Google come at Garmin from above with software, AI coaching, medical clearances, and health features bundled into subscriptions consumers already pay for. Amazfit, Xiaomi, Huawei and the wider Chinese cohort come at Garmin from below with hardware that gets closer to good enough every year at a fraction of the price. Apple posted its first shipment growth since 2022 in 2025, helped by the Watch Ultra 3, the Watch SE 3, and a series-wide refresh that added 5G, RedCap, hypertension notifications, and satellite connectivity. Huawei briefly overtook Apple in global smartwatch shipments in the second quarter of 2025. Counterpoint's data has shown the mid-tier between the two compressing since 2022. Garmin has held the high end through tactical excellence, and the last two years have proven the strategy still works. The question is for how much longer, and the answer depends on which crack widens first.

We have reached peak Fenix pricing - the re-pricing shows it. This is a crack.

The Seven Cracks, Ordered By When Each Becomes Material

Order matters as much as the list. Some of these cracks are already producing visible reactive moves at Garmin. Others will not be visible until the mid-2030s. The interesting commercial question is the sequence.

The rest of this 2500-word article is for logged-in subscribers. This is where it gets juicy.

Behind the paywall: the seven cracks set out individually, with the leading indicator and likely visibility window for each. The Taiwan question is treated separately because rare events do not sit on timelines. The counterweight case for Garmin, written honestly. And the decade-by-decade timeline, including the single Connect+ subscriber milestone that will tell us whether the AI and bundle cracks are being held off or starting to bite.

If you have been reading this site for years, this is the analysis that consolidates a decade of Garmin coverage into a single thesis. If you are new, it is the piece I wish I had written in 2024.

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the5krunner

tfk is the founder and author of the5krunner, an independent endurance sports technology publication. With 20 years of hands-on testing of GPS watches and wearables, and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, tfk provides in-depth expert analysis of fitness technology for serious athletes and endurance sport competitors. ID