IKEA buys land in Hyderabad; moves closer to open India store

Suresh Dharur

Advertisement

Tribune News Service

Hyderabad, July 10

IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer, has purchased land in Hyderabad to build its first retail store in India.

The 13-acre site is close to the IT hub in Hyderabad’s HITEC city. IKEA India CEO Juvencio Maeztu signed the land purchase agreements with the Telangana officials in the presence of the State Information Technology Minister KT Rama Rao.

The Swedish company said it was also evaluating suitable sites in Bengaluru, Mumbai and the National Capital Region (NCR) centred on Delhi to open 25 stores.

“India is a very promising market for IKEA as it offers us the opportunity to source, retail, conduct CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiatives through IKEA Foundation and empower social entrepreneurs through next generation projects. Our focus now is to bring all of it together in Hyderabad as we have bought our first land to build an IKEA store,” Maeztu said.

The company said 50% of managers and workers recruited for the store would be women.

The development comes two years after the Swedish furniture chain won the Union Government’s approval to invest in India in one of the largest single investments to be made by a single-brand foreign retailer in India. IKEA has promised to invest Rs 10,500 crore in India.

A typical IKEA store requires 7-8 acres and takes about 12-18 months to be built. Each store costs an estimated Rs 500 crore.

“It is a matter of pride for Telangana that IKEA has initiated its expansion plans in Hyderabad,” Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said and assured the company of all the support for its future expansion plans in Telangana.

IKEA has been sourcing raw material from India for the past 28 years and it plans to double its sourcing volumes in the country by 2020. Around 45,000 people work directly for 50 IKEA suppliers in India and about four lakh in the extended supply chain.