IKEA to pump in 1.5 billion euros for India expansion plans
Swedish furniture and home products giant, IKEA has committed to invest 1.5 billion euros for its expansion plans in India with focus on opening physical stores as well online businesses for Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai, sources aware of the development said.
Apart from a 5 lakh square foot store which is likely to come up in Nagasandra, in North Bengaluru, the furniture brand would open a combination of the big and smaller stores and online businesses to tap the Indian market.
Bengaluru’s IKEA store will be the company’s third in India and is likely to attract more than 7 million visitors every year.
“The store will offer a wide range of beautiful and affordable home furnishing solutions for the many people in Karnataka. The IKEA store will have around 2,000 parking spaces and a 1,000-seater restaurant serving Swedish and Indian delicacies. It will also house a supervised children’s play area called “Småland”. Around 7,500 products will be on offer with solutions to create a better and brighter everyday life at home,” IKEA told The Morning Standard in an emailed response.
IKEA has plans to hire more than 700 people for its Bengaluru store. Over the last five years since IKEA’s foray into the furniture market, the brand has been able to leverage its business model based on affordability, accessibility and sustainability.
“So far more than 4 million customers have visited our Hyderabad store. We completed a year of operations in August this year. We are learning every day from Hyderabad. We continue to listen to our customers. The IKEA shopping experience is new for many customers and it has been an exciting journey for them to discover and learn how to shop in IKEA. Indians love food and the IKEA restaurant is very popular. It is the biggest IKEA restaurant with 1,000 seats. We have also learnt that Indians are not so used to DIY (do it yourself) and therefore we have created a strong service offer for delivery and assembly services,” the company said in an e-mailed statement.
Through its multichannel approach of setting up physical stores and selling online, IKEA is planning to reach out to a wider range of customers allowing them flexibility to shop from where they want.
"The formats — including small stores and extra small stores — will all be in the range of 50,000 to 150,000 sq ft within the city centre. Apart from this, there will be planning & order points for categories like kitchen etc. which could be smaller than the extra small touchpoints. India is a prioritised market and we have ambitious plans,” IKEA said.