Swedish furniture chain Ikea is to ramp up new store openings worldwide including China.
Ikea’s new CEO Peter Agnefjall, who replaced Mikael Ohlsson, says the new store openings, together with boosting turnover at existing stores, will help the company grow its sales to around 50 billion euros (US$65.8 billion) by 2020.
Agnefjall did not give specific number of stores to be opened, saying he preferred to focus on the sales growth target.
“That’s not a particularly good measurement. A large store can turn around five times as much as a small store, and therefore it’s not a relevant figure to talk about,” says Agnefjall.
The company’s pipeline this year include up to 15 new store openings worldwide, three of which would be in China, a market it expects to be one of its biggest one day.
The CEO says that China, Russia as well as North America performed well in terms of turnover while Europe slowed.
