Hyderabad, Aug 11 (IANS) IKEA Group, the leading Swedish home furnishings company, plans to open 25 stores over next 10 years in India. It also plans to double its sourcing from India to 600 million euros by 2020.
The strategically-located, 13 acre store here is close to HITEC City, the IT hub. The next store will come up in Mumbai, where the company has purchased 24 acre land.
IKEA India CEO Juvencio Maeztu told reporters that this will be followed by opening more stores in Bengaluru and Delhi NCR.
He said the company had plans to open two to three retail stores every year. Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkatta, Pune and Surat are the other cities IKEA is looking at.
The company said some major cities may have more than one store.
IKEA is investing Rs 700 crore on the Hyderabad store spread over 400,000 sq feet. It will hire 500 direct workers and provide 1,500 indirect jobs.
Meztu said people would have access to affordable and good quality home furnishing products.
It will host 5-6 million customers every year.
"This is a big day for us. The store will exhibit home furnishing solutions. It will be more than retailing and offer a complete shopping experience," he said.
He said while the customers could touch and feel the products at the store, they will also have the option of ordering the same online.
IKEA also plans to double its sourcing from India for Indian and global IKEA stores by 2020. The current volume of sourcing is 300 million euros. About 70 percent of the current sourcing is in textiles and rugs.
"We want to expand to new products and categories," he said.
IKEA has been sourcing from India for 30 years for its global stores. The company has 328 stores in 28 countries.
