ix. Achievements attained in terms of Market Share, Sales Turnover, Number of Outlets, Recognition, Adoption & Acceptance of Product, etc.
Unsurprisingly, IKEA’s sales continued to grow, slowly turning the company into an empire. The first IKEA store outside Scandinavia was opened in 1973, near Zurich, Switzerland. Shortly afterwards, the first IKEA store was opened in Germany, which eventually became the largest IKEA market in the world. In 1975, Canada and the Netherlands opened their arms for the successful furniture manufacturer. In 1985 IKEA made it to the other side of the pond, bringing quality and low prices in the States as well. The next few years saw an impressive expansion of the company in many different countries, including The UK, Italy, the Czech Republic, Poland, the United Arab Emirates and even China.
The firm is now known for the attention it gives to cost control, operational details and continuous product development, allowing it to lower its prices by an of average 2 to 3% over the decade to 2010, while continuing its global expansion. As of October 2011, IKEA has 326 stores in thirty-eight countries. In fiscal year 2010, it sold $23.1 billion worth of goods, a 7.7 percent increase over 2009. It is currently ranked 28th most value brand by Interbrand with a brand value of 12.5 billion dollar. The IKEA website contains about 12,000 products and is the closest representation of the entire IKEA range. There were over 470 million visitors to the IKEA websites in the year from September 2007 to September 2008.
