World’s largest Ikea to open in Manila

MANILA: The world’s largest Ikea store will open in 2020 in the Philippines as the Swedish furniture retailer presses on its bets in Asia.

Ikea would debut a 65,000-sq-m store in SM Prime Holdings Inc’s Mall of Asia where it’s leasing a space that’s equal to more than 150 basketball courts, Ikea South-East Asia managing director Christian Rojkjaer said at the launch of the Philippine website. A typical Ikea big blue-box is about 35,000 sq m.

Ikea would spend an initial 7 billion pesos (US$134mil) to build, stock, and staff the store, which would carry 9,000 products, Rojkjaer said.

The Manila complex will have a two-level shop, a warehouse, an e-commerce facility and a call centre that will serve more than five million households within a 60-minute radius. The company will employ 500 staff.

The Philippines, where the growing middle class is forecast to spend more than Italy’s by 2030, has a population of more than 105 mil- lion people dominated demographic.

The economy has expanded above 6% for 13 straight quarters, fuelled by private consumption which makes up the bulk of gross domestic product.

The world’s largest furniture retailer is expanding rapidly in Asia. It debuted the first of 25 stores in India in August. Last week, it by a working-age said it would open the first city-centre store in Tokyo in 2020 near one of its busiest metro stations.

The Mall of Asia complex sits across Manila’s gaming district where integrated casino resorts worth more than US$1bil each have sprouted and attracted mainland Chinese tourist traffic that has driven up property prices. — Bloomberg