Swedish furniture behemoth IKEA opens its first India store in only a matter of hours. You can practically feel the excitement!

On Thursday morning, the new outlet will open its doors for the first time to an estimated 7 million visitors annually.

IKEA Opens Its First India Store

The new store is located in India’s southern city of Hyderabad and is spread across 400,000 square feet.

But this is only the beginning for IKEA in India. The company is aiming to have 25 stores across the country by 2025. The cost of its Indian takeover? Nothing short of a 105 billion rupee (or $1.5 billion USD) investment. 

“We are making a long-term commitment,” IKEA’s India CEO Peter Betzel told reporters in Hyderabad on Wednesday. “India will be the future.”

Each store will cost the company an estimated 10 billion rupee or $145 million USD, and Ikea will spread its reach across 40 Indian cities.

A followup store is planned to open in 2019 in Mumbai, and the next ones after that will be in Bangalore and Gurgaon near Delhi.

Government Restrictions Cause Delay

IKEA has been using India for around three decades already, sourcing materials for its global operations on its lands.

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But due to strict government regulations on foreign investment, it was prevented from opening any physical outlets there. Since 2016, those rules have been eased but it still took IKEA time to get the flagship store up and running. 

A Very Attractive Market

India has a population of 1.3 billion people, of which more than 50% are under 25 years of age. This demographic makes India a hugely attractive market and as a result, the company is expecting as equally an impressive footfall as it currently experiences in major cities such as Hong Kong.

Are you excited about IKEA in India? Let us know below!

Featured Image: Deposit Images/valipatov