The Swedish multi-channel home furnishing retailer IKEA today highlighted how India is contributing towards its overall growth across its retail expansion, sourcing and in the area of building social entrepreneurs.
Following the announcement of the company results and providing India perspective, Juvencio Maeztu, CEO, IKEA India, in a statement said, “India is contributing towards overall growth of IKEA in all dimensions. Our India expansion plans have gathered pace with the recent ground breaking ceremony of the first India store in Hyderabad, slated to open end of 2017. We have bought land in Mumbai and continue looking for suitable locations in the prioritised cities of Delhi NCR, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Telangana.”
“Our focus now is to bring great home furnishings inspiration for the Indian consumers and double the sourcing by 2020, adding on a number of suppliers for different home categories including materials locally found in India like bamboo, jute etc. We have recently started new suppliers. India will be good for IKEA,” he said.
IKEA Group total sales for financial year 2016 topped € 34.2 billion, up 7.9 per cent.
“IKEA Group had another good year and welcomed 783 million visits to our stores. In all of our meetings with the customers, we want to provide good quality products and inspiration for creating beautiful homes. Last year’s focus on the theme “It starts with the Food”, covering kitchen, cooking, eating, and the food-business, was a strong success and appreciated by the customers”, Peter Agnefjäll, President and CEO of IKEA Group, said.
China remains one of the fastest growing markets for IKEA Group, together with Australia, Canada and Poland. Germany, retained its position as the largest market, closely followed by the US. Plans are on track to open the first stores in India and Serbia during the coming year.
On a journey to become the world’s leading multichannel home furnishing retailer, IKEA Group is increasing its focus on integrating physical and digital commerce to enable customers to shop in ways that suits their needs.
IKEA has been sourcing from India for the 30 years for its global stores.