Swedish furniture maker IKEA plans to spend about 300 million euros (US$327 million) in South Korea over the next three years to increase market share in the East Asian country.
“We are investing a lot in Asia,” Tolga Oncu, head of the company’s retail Ingka Group, said in an interview in Goyang, South Korea, on Saturday on his first visit to the country since 2018.
The group is to open another so-called blue box store in Seoul and is considering “many more smaller formats.”
Photo: AFP
IKEA, known for its do-it-yourself business model, has four outlets in South Korea, and offers online shopping and delivery. The company is seeking to increase consumers’ access to stores, Oncu said.
“Maybe you don’t need to walk more than 15 minutes to get your products in a convenience store or somewhere,” he said.
IKEA has in the past few years invested in automation improvement of its shipping service, which can lead to lower prices, he said.
“Korea has one of the highest quality of last-mile deliveries,” he said.
The brand is planning to cut prices globally and is looking at 10 percent to 20 percent reductions for key products in South Korea, he said.
In the US, IKEA has lowered retail costs on almost 1,000 products, including on its popular Billy bookcase, and plans to keep cutting.
The firm began the US price-cutting push in January and is also lowering prices across the more than 60 other markets where it operates. Consumers have responded by increasing their purchases of those cheaper items at IKEA stores.
The furniture maker sells 9,500 products and raised prices across the board for the first time in decades during the COVID-19 pandemic because of supply-chain disruptions. Now, declines in the prices of raw materials and lower transportation costs have enabled the cuts, the firm said.
“I think in general for IKEA worldwide, it is looking like this is going to be one of the biggest price reductions that we have ever done in one year,” Oncu said.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
BIG BUCKS: Chairman Wei is expected to receive NT$34.12 million on a proposed NT$5 cash dividend plan, while the National Development Fund would get NT$8.27 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday announced that its board of directors approved US$15.25 billion in capital appropriations for long-term expansion to meet growing demand. The funds are to be used for installing advanced technology and packaging capacity, expanding mature and specialty technology, and constructing fabs with facility systems, TSMC said in a statement. The board also approved a proposal to distribute a NT$5 cash dividend per share, based on first-quarter earnings per share of NT$13.94, it said. That surpasses the NT$4.50 dividend for the fourth quarter of last year. TSMC has said that while it is eager
‘IMMENSE SWAY’: The top 50 companies, based on market cap, shape everything from technology to consumer trends, advisory firm Visual Capitalist said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was ranked the 10th-most valuable company globally this year, market information advisory firm Visual Capitalist said. TSMC sat on a market cap of about US$915 billion as of Monday last week, making it the 10th-most valuable company in the world and No. 1 in Asia, the publisher said in its “50 Most Valuable Companies in the World” list. Visual Capitalist described TSMC as the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry operator that rolls out chips for major tech names such as US consumer electronics brand Apple Inc, and artificial intelligence (AI) chip designers Nvidia Corp and Advanced
RSS