Thinking of class–style–speed in one piece, in a beast-on-wheel? Search no further, BMW easily fills that void. Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, known with the acronym BMW is a multinational German auto-maker. Established in 1916 with the initial vision of producing aircraft engines, the company has grown in leaps and bounds as it is ranked the twelfth largest producer of automobiles with over 2 million automobiles since inception.
The BMW is headquartered in Munich but runs series of manufacturing and assembling operations in Germany, India, Brazil, China, United Kingdom, South Africa and the United States. Initially, the company started out as Motorenwerke in 1916 and were strictly into manufacture of proprietary industrial engines. After World War I, the company was acquired by BFw and this was immediately followed with a merger into BMW. With the merger, operations commenced immediately in the former premises of BFw and previous line of products were improved.
Bimmer!! As lovers of the brand eventually named the “machine”, BMW comes with a sleek and simple logo. In fact, the logo comes with a plain inscription of the acronym “BMW” and unlike many brand it has only undergone few modifications- with the last change been in 1929. In terms of production, the BMW Group produced 1,366,838 and 1,481,253 automobiles in 2006 and 2010 respectively. On a daily basis, about 9,000 automobiles are moved out of the Group’s plant with 63% being shipped on rail.
The designs of BMWs are indeed a sight to relish; actually they are often a perfect wonder-on-wheel but the mechanics are said to be flawed by experts. In this light, the brand has suffered series of mechanical faults which has forced a recall of thousands of the brand. In November 2016, fuel leak and engine malfunction led to a mass recall of about 136,000 (2007-2012 model) vehicles. This gloom was soon followed with a ban of the product in 2018 by the South Korean government. This series of glitches resulted to a recall of over a million BMW worldwide but despite these shortcomings, the brand is one to beat – at least for its constant improvements and style.
Consequent on these inadequacies, the Group has been dynamic and proactive in managing its product pitfalls; hence the continuous thriving of the brand. In 2017, the company recorded a whooping earning of €8.620 billion and a yearly revenue of € 98.678 billion- indicating an improvement (of 4.8%) on the previous earning. This is consolidated by the waxing market performance. In fact, the huge gain is evident as the employees of the company keeps increasing. The global record of the firm indicated a labor force of 110,351, 116,324, 122,244, 124,729 and 129,932 in the year 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 respectively. Do you know your Bimmer? Think again! If yes? Then take this BMW quiz.
