With 40,000 customers on Day 1, IKEA's Hyderabad store gets grand opening

About 40,000 people visited IKEA's first India store on the opening day, a company spokesperson told IANS.

The world's leading Swedish home furnishings retailer received huge response from customers on Thursday.

The spokesperson, however, declined to share the numbers relating to the business transacted on the first day.

However, the response was in line with the expectations. Store manager John Achillea had stated that they were expecting 40,000 to 45,000 people.

With a huge crowd thronging the store in the evening, the IKEA staff found it a bit challenging to regulate the entry. There were also few tense moments when some people broke queue to force their entry.

Drawn by the aggressive marketing campaign including advertisements with the prices of affordable products, a large number of visitors from several parts of the city thronged the store.

Ikea's sofas and spoons in demand as first India store opens in Hyderabad

Ikea spent 12 years studying India and visited 1,000 homes in major cities to see how its people lived. On Thursday, as a few dozen early shoppers walked through the doors as the emporium opened in Hyderabad, the acid test began of whether the furniture giant understands what Indian consumers want.

“I have no plans to blow a lot of money today, maybe just buy some kitchenware, but this is going to be a destination for me,” said Rajani Venugopal, a businesswoman who waited about an hour and managed to be the first person in the doors.

Some 380 million Indians, a population bigger than the entire US, will join the middle class in the seven years through 2022. Ikea’s 400,000-square-foot Hyderabad store is the first step in the retailer’s plans for India, with more outlets scheduled to debut in Mumbai, Bengaluru and the New Delhi area soon after. By 2025, the company hopes to have 25 stores in the country.