JOIN USSwedish home furnishing major IKEA, the world's largest furniture seller is scouting for locations in Bengaluru and Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) for setting up its stores.
"Land for us is a very important component. We have already started work at Hyderabad and the groundbreaking for Navi Mumbai has happened as well. The company is in negotiations for land in Bengaluru and Delhi NCR and we are close to signing deals in these regions," IKEA India chief executive officer Juvencio Maeztu said at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Navi Mumbai store.
The Hyderabad store should be operational early next year while the Mumbai store is planned to open early 2019, Maeztu added.
The IKEA store in Navi Mumbai is located near the Turbhe train station and is spread across 4.3 lakh sq. ft. area. The store will have 1500 parking spaces and a 1000 seat restaurant serving Swedish and Indian delicacies.
More than 9500 products will be displayed, including more than 60 room settings and 3 full-size homes.
The store is expected to be visited by more than 4 million Mumbaikars every year. Each IKEA store is likely to employ around 700 direct co-workers and another 1500 providing services such as assembly, delivery etc.
According to Maeztu, the company is not in a hurry to join the e-commerce bandwagon in India. "We have started looking at the process of e-commerce sales in India. We will be starting our Hyderabad store without e-commerce and may look at it after starting the Hyderabad store, Maeztu said.