Crowds storm IKEA store in Hyderabad on first day

The world's leading Swedish home furnishings retailer, IKEA, has received huge response from customers in Hyderabad, where it opened its first India store on Thursday. About 40,000 people visited IKEA`s India store on the opening day, a company spokesperson told IANS, refusing to share the numbers relating to the business transacted.
 
The response, however, was in line with expectations, said store manager John Achillea, adding that they were expecting 40,000 to 45,000 people.
 
With huge crowd thronging the store in the evening, the IKEA staff reportedly found it a bit difficult to regulate the entry, and there were also tense moments when some people broke queue to force their way in.
 
A large number of visitors thronged the store as the company had launched an aggressive marketing campaign including advertisements with the prices of affordable products. 
 
As the sprawling store has come up in the heart of HITEC City, majority of the customers were reportedly techies from information technology companies. Of these, many were expatriates and Indians who have lived abroad and were familiar with the brand.
 
Several visitors also enjoyed themselves at the 1,000-seater restaurant, which is the biggest for IKEA in its global network. The store housed in the 400,000 sq.ft area reportedly offers 7,500 products, including 1,000 products priced below Rs 200.
 
Notably, IKEA's first India store has opened with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore. Surprisingly, it opened five years after the single brand retailer received government approval in 2013 to invest Rs 10,500 crore to open 25 stores in India by 2025.
 
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The company has reportedly revised the number of stores to 40 across all formats. IKEA`s next store will open in Navi Mumbai in next summer, followed by Bengaluru and Delhi, thereafter it would reportdly cover Ahmedabad, Surat, Pune, Chennai and Kolkatta.