Ingka Group, the parent company of IKEA, is looking to expand its presence in India by setting up ‘Ingka Centres’ in Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR and Mumbai.
“As part of Ingka Centre's global expansion strategy, we are interested in developing IKEA-anchored meeting places in India, but we are not able to provide more details at this point,” Peter Betzel, CEO of IKEA India told Business Standard.
The move is a way to enter various cities in India through an “omni-channel strategy” consisting of large and small format IKEA stores and online services.
The game plan is to launch a pilot store in Mumbai region – a big-format one in Navi Mumbai expected in a few months and two small-format stores in Mumbai in 2021, followed by Delhi and Bengaluru; after which possibilities are being explored in Gurugram (store under construction) and Noida, the report said.
Betzel said the aim is to make India among IKEA’s top five markets in the next 8-10 years, adding that he feels India can also become a manufacturing hub for IKEA in the future. Ingka has invested the 1.5 billion euros it committed to India to build stores and warehouses, he said.
Notably, 50 of the company’s 1,000 global suppliers are from India. It currently sources 20 percent of its locally sold goods domestically, and aims to increase this to 50 percent, Betzel added.
Globally, Ingka Centres are shopping mall sized and anchored to IKEA stores. They also house retail stores, movie theatres and entertainment zones. The Group has 45 such Centres in 15 countries under various trademarks such as LIVAT (China), MEGA (Russia).
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