IKEA, around 70% above target after 4 months

IKEA, the furniture and home decorations retailer, has derived around 70% higher revenues, during its first four and a half months on the Romanian market, than initially budgeted, according to company estimates. Cornel Oprisan, retail manager of IKEA Romania, chose not to specify the value of sales during this period, or the percentage by which the figures surpassed the estimates, but he did confirm the fact that IKEA exceeded its initial budget. IKEA had budgeted revenues worth 40m euros for its first year in Romania, but given that they were 70% higher than expected, they could amount to about 68m euros. In addition, IKEA plans to expand into other areas in Romania and is now looking at the market. “We could cover Romania with six to eight IKEA stores. Investments per outlet are estimated at around 20-25m euros and the size of the stores could be smaller covering approximately 20,000 square metres,” stated Cornel Oprisan. The current IKEA outlet employs 434 individuals. If the Swedish-based company opened a store each year in Romania, within the next 3 years the number of staff employed could possibly exceed 3,000. According to market estimates, the average salary package of an IKEA store assistant stands at around 350 euros. Yesterday, IKEA launched its 2008 catalogue, with overall investments for production and distribution estimated at 1.3m euros. In total, 950,000 catalogues will be distributed within 3 weeks, during the period August 20-September 9. The catalogue includes 3,000 items from the overall range of around 7,000 IKEA products.