Garmin confirms it’s grabbing all the new runners’ wrists with its watches

Garmin’s latest quarterly earnings were a mixed bag of highly positive signs and worrying declines in the core Fenix-related segment. The single most positive factor for the impressive growth of the Fitness segment (Forerunner, Venu) is that first-time watch buyers make up by far the most significant number of new customers.

Growth across both kinds of products that we have in fitness…running products (and) advanced wellness products…The convincing majority of people coming to our platform are new users, and we’re seeing strong double-digit growth in those registrations and new products year over year.[Pemble, CEO]

Analysis: Young and female demographics are booming for the fitness industry first-timer, and running is one of the key sports to benefit. Garmin is well-positioned to handle growth and has a portfolio of relevant features for the female audience. Anecdotally, I have heard that Coros is also doing well in the same demographics, but it’s probably that Garmin is taking the lion’s share of the traditional sports watches. Apple may be a different story.

Market Impact: Coros, Polar, and the Female Demographics

What’s also interesting here is that Pemble didn’t mention competitors switching to Garmin – it’s just not as important a factor as wholly new customers. That might be good news for competitors like Polar and Suunto, who could’ve retained customers and modestly grown. Of course, Garmin also lost some customers, and as I identified in an article last week, Garmin needs to fix many ‘sticks’ to stop them from being driven into the hands of Coros (wrists!).