IKEA, a Swedish home furnishing major is all set to open its first Indian store at Hi-Tec City in Hyderabad tomorrow. It has been sourcing its products from India for its global stores for more than 30 years. It has come up with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore and will house a 1,000-seater restaurant, IKEA’s largest to date.
It will offer 7,500 affordable, value for money home furnishing products and 1,000 products will be priced below Rs 200, IKEA Retail India CEO Peter Betzel told. The store is 4,00,000 sq.ft. large and spread over 13 acres.
It employs 950 co-workers in which nearly 50 per cent are women, and 1,500 employs indirectly in services and expects to host close to 7 million visitors each year.
“Rs 10,500 crore is our approved initial investment back in 2013 and so far we have spent around half the amount. As we see big opportunities in India we believe that we will increase this investment as we continue our expansion”. Patrik Antoni, deputy country manager of IKEA India said
After the Hyderabad store, the next will be launched in Mumbai and is expected to be ready by 2019 summer, which will be followed by Bengaluru, Gurugram.
IKEA plans to open retail stores in over 40 cities across the country. “We have acquired four land sites in our first-priority markets–Telangana, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi/NCR and we continue to look for suitable sites in different cities,” they said.
IKEA aims to reach 200 million customers in India in the next three years. The company, currently has 403 stores in 49 countries, with a sales volume of 38.3 billion euros.
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