Garmin, whose fitness and outdoor products earn most of its profit, grew sales and margins in the third quarter of 2026. Part of the record margin came from one-time tariff refunds, while growing inventory and investment absorbed more cash.
A runner may glance at their wrist mid-run to check pace or heart rate. It may be a Garmin. The company designs, builds and sells GPS devices (gadgets that use satellites to find their location) for athletes, hikers, boat owners, pilots and carmakers. It earns mainly when it sells a device. Its Garmin Connect app tracks training, activity and wellness data, so a runner with years of history there has a reason to pick Garmin again.
Buyers pay mostly for the device, and Garmin books almost all its sales when a product ships. In , fitness brought in $2.4 billion and outdoor $2.1 billion of the group's $7.2 billion in sales. Together, this main engine earned most of the operating profit. Boat and aircraft electronics add smaller but solid profits, while the carmaker unit still loses money. What remains depends on how fast Garmin launches new models and what they cost to build, since it designs and makes its own products. Research spending is largely fixed, so margins widen when sales grow faster than research and overhead costs. The price of this model is : Garmin keeps spare components on hand in case supply runs short, and that ties up cash.
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