Management believes that free cash flow is an important financial measure because it represents the amount of cash provided by operations that is available for investing and defines it as operating cash less capital expenditures for property and equipment. Management believes that excluding purchases of property and equipment provides a better understanding of the underlying trends in the Company’s operating performance and allows more accurate comparisons of the Company’s operating results to historical performance. This metric may also be useful to investors, but should not be considered in isolation as it is not a measure of cash flow available for discretionary expenditures. The most comparable GAAP measure is cash provided by operating activities.
| Garmin Ltd. And Subsidiaries | ||||||||||
| Free Cash Flow | ||||||||||
| (in thousands) | ||||||||||
| 13-Weeks Ended | ||||||||||
| March 31, | April 1, | |||||||||
| 2018 | 2017 | |||||||||
| Net cash provided by operating activities | $ | 214,190 | $ | 120,395 | ||||||
| Less: purchases of property and equipment | (26,336 | ) | (25,538 | ) | ||||||
| Free Cash Flow | $ | 187,854 | $ | 94,857 | ||||||
