Garmin continues to post strong top line growth while ASP’s for GPS units slowly decline and Garmin sees their margins erode as competition increases. Revenue for the quarter increased 29.8% to $251.3 million from $193.6 last year.

The consumer segment posted Q3 sales of $190.7 million, a 31% increase over 2004. The company shipped a total of 708,000 units during the quarter, up 31% from 540,000 last year. Roughly 44% of all products sold during the quarter were new introductions. North America revenue was up 21.6% to $163.0 million compared to $134.4 million last year.

Gross margin fell more than six full percentage points to 51.5% versus 57.7% last year, causing operating margin to slip nearly six full percentage points to 33.9% compared to 39.8% for last year’s Q3.

Net income increased 52.7% to $102.5 million, or 94 cents diluted earnings per share, compared to $67.1 million or 62 cents diluted earnings per share in the year-ago quarter. However, $36.4 million of the increase in income was due to the effects of a stronger U.S. dollar compared to the Taiwan dollar.

Excluding the effects of foreign currency, net income would have decreased 1.5% to $66.1 million and diluted EPS for the quarter would have been 67 cents compared to 58 cents in the year-ago quarter.