Garmin Malaysia Celebrates 20 Years of running innovation with new additions to the Forerunner collection

20 years after releasing the world’s first GPS smartwatch, Garmin marked the milestone with the launch of the Forerunner 265 series and Forerunner 965 featuring AMOLED touch screens designed by runners, for runners.  

Kuala Lumpur, 11th April 2023 – Garmin Malaysia today launched the all new Forerunner 265 series and Forerunner 965 in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the Forerunner, the world’s first GPS smartwatch designed to help runners adopt accurate and sophisticated data to train safely, achieve personal bests and reach new heights.

The launch celebration marked 20 years of providing runners with precise data analysis through the Forerunner. The running smartwatch tracks a runner’s precise positioning while analyzing data including distance, speed, elevation gain as well as heart rate, blood oxygen and more.

“As the leading expert in GPS technology wearables, Garmin is excited to offer Malaysians a smartwatch that was built with their running needs in mind. With the Forerunner 265 series and Forerunner 965, runners will get to experience Garmin's innovative technological breakthroughs and be pushed to their personal best,” said Mr Scoppen Lin, Assistant General Manager, Garmin Asia.

Empowering Runners with Running Science

Committed to offering the best running science for athletes, users can benefit from Garmin’s most advanced and accurate health and performance data to make more efficient and data-driven decisions during training and recovery. Garmin utilized Firstbeat Analytics for more than a decade before acquiring the industry-leading physiological analytics companies in the world.

Forerunner 965 – For the best, the best

Made for the marathon and triathlon enthusiasts, the Forerunner 965 is equipped with a titanium bezel, a 1.4-inch AMOLED display and an amazing battery life of up to 23 days on smartwatch mode. It currently holds the record for having the world’s longest battery life for a running watch with an AMOLED display.

Unique to the Forerunner 965, the watch comes equipped with the Stamina and Acute Chronic Workload Ratio features to track and help users manage their physical exertion throughout a run, to prevent “bonking” by overexerting too early in a run and to determine overall training load metrics for proper training scheduling respectively.

The smartwatch contains features like Wrist-Based Running Dynamics, where long-distance users can access detailed metrics through on-wrist running dynamics including stride length, vertical oscillation directly from the watch in real-time.

Rigorous and Comprehensive Testing Procedures for Quality Assurance

Designed for runners, by runners, Forerunner 965 and Forerunner 265 series are purpose-built in both form and function to help athletes better plan, prepare, perform and connect.

To ensure that Garmin’s products can keep up with users' vigorous training regimens, the products are put through diverse extreme tests to simulate real-life usage scenarios, including but not limited to low and high temperature tests, 10-bar stress tests, acceleration detection tests, altimeter tests, repeated drop tests, watch band wear cycle tests. The variety of tests would ensure that customers would experience superior product quality and build.

One example is the Heart Rate Variability (HRV) sensor data which provides the most advanced analysis and metrics in the areas of stress, sleep, maximal oxygen consumption (VO2 Max), training status/load, training effectiveness, and respiration rate.

Forerunner 265 Series – Get ready to shine

On the other hand, the Forerunner 265 comes with a Ground Gorilla Glass 4 lens, with an option of 1.3-inch AMOLED display, featuring a battery life of up to 13 days or 1.1-inch AMOLED display (on the Forerunner 265S) featuring a battery life of up to 15 days. Forerunner 265 includes performance monitoring tools from Garmin Firstbeat Analytics like VO2 max, performance condition, training effect and more.

Getting Runners from Zero to Hero

Garmin places great importance on community – building run communities throughout key Asian cities through Garmin Run Club activities to bring people who love running together.

This year as part of the Forerunner 20th anniversary celebration, Malaysians can get excited about the regional annual Garmin Run Asia Series which welcomes runners to participate in both virtual and offline events. In addition to Malaysia, the run will be present in four major Asian cities, offering runners a fun environment to join like-minded runners to achieve their personal bests. In 2022, the inaugural offline race saw over 20,000 participants across Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Taipei.

Garmin first set foot in the aviation industry with cutting-edge GPS navigation products in 1989 and expanded into automotive, marine, outdoor products and subsequently fitness wearables in 2003, with the launch of the world’s first running smartwatch – the Forerunner 201.

Forerunner 265 series are already available on Shopee, Lazada, Garmin Brand Stores and authorized retailers and Forerunner 965 will be available from 29 April 2023.

Find out more about the 20 years of Forerunner at garmin.com.my/event/2023/forerunner-20th/.

Every Run Starts Here - Forerunner for Runners

In 2022 alone, there were over 320,000 new Forerunner users across Asia. Despite the global pandemic, running activities clocked by Garmin users in Asia grew by 24 percent from 2020 to 2022, demonstrating the unstoppable love for running in Asia.

Locally in Malaysia, Garmin users who recorded running activity also grew by 39 percent from 2020 to 2022, indicating a rise in the number of runners in the nation. Meanwhile, Forerunner users in Malaysia achieved a 11% year-on-year growth in 2022.

“We believe the Malaysian market has plenty of room to grow with increased interest in fitness and running. With the launch of the latest Forerunner innovations, we hope to inspire Malaysians to pursue a healthy lifestyle and continue to improve their running performance with advanced training metrics, recovery insights and everyday health stats offered in Garmin’s brightest running smartwatches,” shared Mr Lin.