IKEA, a Swedish furniture and homeware company, will be opening its flagship store in Bengaluru in June, 2022. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai reiterated about the event at the World Economic Forum Summit, Davos.
In his tweet, Bommai said that the Karnataka government is in talks with the organisation to encourage local manufacturing, after he met Jesper Brodin, Ingka Group (IKEA) Global Chief Executive Officer(CEO) at the summit.
The store will be set up in Nagasandra. According to an official statement, Brodin has invited Chief Minister Bommai for the inauguration. IKEA had previously stated that the Bengaluru store will employ 800-1000 direct workers and another 1,500 to indirectly offer other services such as assembly and delivery.
“IKEA works with nine home furnishing suppliers in Karnataka, including a social entrepreneur engaging 1,200 local artisans, thereby increasing its local sourcing footprint in the state,” the company said in its statement earlier. It has also mentioned that Karnataka is a very important market for IKEA and Bengaluru is one of the largest homes for furnishing markets in India.
The IKEA store in Bengaluru will be its third flagship store in India after Mumbai and Hyderabad. It also has an online presence currently in Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara.