Garmin to invest in Southeast Asia to strengthen supply chain

Taipei, April 26 (CNA) Garmin, a Taiwan-based GPS navigation solution and wearable device provider, has planned to invest in Southeast Asia for the first time as part of its efforts to improve resilience of the supply chain.

Lin Meng-yuan (林孟垣), Garmin's marketing and business vice president for Asia, said at a company event held on Thursday that Garmin will begin investing in Southeast Asia in May, with production set to start in 2026, but the location of the plant will not be announced until next month.

The move, which has been in the works for some time, is aimed at diversifying the company's production base and strengthening its supply chain resilience by building closer ties with suppliers there, Lin said.

Strengthening the company's supply chain is critical, Lin said, because Garmin tends to require fast lead times for products and more than two suppliers for every component the company purchases.

The investment project, which will initially focus on auto navigation products, is expected to help spur the company's growth over the next 10 to 30 years, Lin said.

Garmin, which was co-founded by Min Kao (高民環), a Taiwanese native, has maintained 90 percent of production in Taiwan and employs about 10,000 people in the country, but Lin said the relocation was not focused on lowering manufacturing costs.

In Taiwan, Garmin has production sites in Xizhi and Linkuo districts in New Taipei, Zhongli District in Taoyuan, and Tainan, where the company expanded capacity in 2021, Lin said.

It has also set up a research and development center in New Taipei's Xindian District, reflecting its efforts to invest in Taiwan, Lin said.

Outside Taiwan, Lin said, Garmin has 10 production bases in the United States and Europe, Lin said.

Garmin has forecast that its sales will grow 10 percent in 2024 on average, with revenue in Asia region expected to grow 19 percent to outperform the average despite foreign exchange losses in Japan and a slow economic recovery in China.

Sales in 2024 in Taiwan, considered to be a mature market, are expected to grow 10 percent, while the markets in Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia are expected to grow steadily.