Founded
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21 July 1917
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Founder(s)
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Franz Josef Popp
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Headquarters
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Munich, Germany
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Area served
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Worldwide
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Products
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Automobiles, motorcycles, bicycles
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Operating income
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€5.094 billion (2010)
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Profit
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€3.218 billion (2010)
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Employees
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100,306 (end 2011)
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Subsidiaries
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Rolls-Royce Motor Cars
Husqvarna
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Website
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bmw.com
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Company history
BMW entered existence as a business entity following a restructuring of the Rapp Motorenwerke aircraft engine manufacturing firm in 1917. After the end of World War I in 1918, BMW was forced to cease aircraft engine production by the terms of the Versailles Armistice Treaty.
The first car which BMW successfully produced and the car which launched BMW on the road to automobile production was the Dixi, it was based on the Austin 7 and licensed from the Austin Motor Company in Birmingham, England.
The circular blue and white BMW logo or roundel evolved from the circular Rapp Motorenwerke company logo, from which the BMW company grew, combined with the blue and white colors of the flag of Bavaria. The logo has been portrayed as the movement of an aircraft propeller with the white blades cutting through a blue sky — first used in a BMW advertisement in 1929, twelve years after the roundel was created.
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Dixi, the car that launched BMW on the road to automobile production.
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BMW first entered Formula One as a full-fledged team in 2006.
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