Beijing opens 2nd IKEA

Two staff members of IKEA prepare for the opening of its 14th store in China on Nov 06, 2013 in Beijing. [Zhang Wei / China Daily]

Swedish home furnishing giant IKEA opens its 14th store in China on Thursday, accelerating the retail expansion in the world's fastest growing economy.

The new store, also the second in Beijing, will be one of four full-range standard IKEA stores in China.

"After providing furnishing solutions for people living in the north part of the city, now we open a store in the south part of the city to further fulfill our vision of 'creating a better everyday life for people'," said Zhu Changlai, IKEA China retail manager.

In 1998, IKEA opened its first store in Shanghai, and one year later a second store in Beijing. However, the furnishing company suspended expansion for five years and later opened a third location in Guangzhou in 2005.

In 2010, the company boosted expansion in China with a speed of opening one or two stores a year.

And during its 2013 fiscal year, which ended on August 31, IKEA opened three stores in Wuxi, Ningbo and Shanghai, marking its third location in the city, and also the biggest in Asia.

"After the newly-opened second store in south Beijing, we will have new stores in Chongqing and Wuhan in our 2014 fiscal year," said Zhu.

IKEA's financial report for its 2013 fiscal year showed that its revenue in China surged 17 percent to 6.3 billion yuan year on year, and visitors to stores in 11 cities increased 12 percent, reaching more than 45 million.

Peter Agnefj ll, the new president and CEO of the group since September 1 said he expected IKEA's revenue in China to more than double between 2013 to 2020.

Statistics from consulting firm Roland Berger Strategy Consultants showed that China's furnishing market maintained an average annual growth of 11 percent between 2008 and 2011, and will continue the momentum of about 10 percent year on year through 2017.

New Beijing store

IKEA opened its first store in Beijing in 1999, and then moved it in 2006 as a standard full-size store to the fourth ring road in the northern part of the city.

"Local citizen's enthusiasm for our products made IKEA realize the importance of having one more store in the big city," said Fredrik Johansson, manager of IKEA's new Beijing store.

To be more relevant to people living in south Beijing, Johansson said that IKEA designed a different store layout to present its 9,000 items.

"According to our survey, we found that there are more families living with children in the south part of the city, and it has also been an area for new residential buildings," said Johansson. "So we designed 60 different display rooms due to the residential layout and habits of people living in the south part of the city."

Neighboring subway Line 4, the 50,811-square meter store also provides 1,750 free parking spaces.