The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Ikea

Ikea profits hold flat as competition forces price reductions

Author

By John Glenday, Reporter

January 29, 2015 | 1 min read

Ikea’s profits have been held as flat as its furniture, despite rising sales, as increased competition forced the retailer to slash prices and invest in staff.

Net profit held steady at €3.3bn for the 12 months to August 2014 even as sales rose 5.9 per cent to hit €28.7bn, driven by growth in China, Russia and Hungary. Online growth also continued apace with Ikea.com recording 1.5bn visits.

The Swedish chain’s largest markets were Germany, France, US, Russia and the UK.

Ikea chief executive Peter Agnefjall said: "A key factor to our strong performance is that we have a long-term view and we don’t aim to maximise short-term profits.

“North America performed well and while the challenging economic situation may not be over, Europe continued to show improvements.

"An especially positive sign was the growth in most of southern Europe."

Ikea is targeting total sales of €50bn by 2020.

Ikea

More from Ikea

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +