IKEA, the Swedish home furnishings chain, inaugurated its first store in India at Hyderabad, Telangana. The store was launched by IT Minister of Telangana K T Rama Rao on 9 August 2018.

The store is 4,00,000 sq ft large and is spread over 13 acre in Hyderabad Information Technology and Engineering Consultancy City (HITEC City). It will offer 7,500 affordable, good quality, value-for-money home furnishing products, all under one roof.

The store will remain open 365 days. The store will house a 1,000-seater restaurant, IKEA’s largest and possibly India’s largest restaurant.

The IKEA store in Hyderabad will offer ideas, inspiration and solutions. It will exhibit two full homes that reflect Life at Home in Hyderabad, besides different room sets based on different parts of the home like bedroom, kitchen, children’s room and living room.

It will also have a market hall with kitchen utensils and accessories, textiles, rugs, lighting, decoration, stationary and even live plants.

The store is the first of 25 stores IKEA plans to open across India by 2025. It plans to open stores in Mumbai in 2019, followed by Bengaluru and Gurugram. Other cities that the company is looking to expand to include Ahmedabad, Surat, Pune, Chennai, and Kolkata.

The store directly employs 950 co-workers in Hyderabad and 1,500 indirectly in services

Out of the total investment of Rs 10,500 crore for India operations, IKEA has so far invested Rs 4,500 crore in its various projects in India. For Hyderabad store alone, it has invested Rs 1,000 crore.