Retail sales across IKEA’s largest franchisee group, the Ingka Group, are down €600 million to €39.0 billion for the 2025 financial year, a 1.6% decline from €39.6 billion a year earlier as the group cut prices to ease the burden on cash‑strapped shoppers. The drop in value came even as the furniture giant sold more products in stores, up 1.6%, and an increase in foot traffic. In‑store visits climbed 1.3% to 736 million, indicating that more customers shopped but spent less per visit.
“Our business direction is clear: we want to make IKEA more affordable, accessible and sustainable, especially for people with thin wallets,” Jon Abrahamsson Ring, chief executive officer of Inter IKEA Group, wrote in the foreword to the company’s sustainability statement, a line Ingka used to anchor its decision to prioritise unit volume and customer access over short‑term top‑line growth.
Digital channels provided much of the furniture giant’s growth. Online visits rose 4.6%, pushing e‑commerce to roughly 30% of total sales, up from 28% a year earlier. Ingka pointed to upgraded fulfilment capabilities — notably a new hub at its Soroksar store in Budapest — and sharpened digital tools that the company says helped keep service levels steady and customer satisfaction at a six‑year high. However, despite the contraction in retail sales, Ingka pressed on with expansion, opening 54 new retail locations worldwide, including major launches in London and Delhi and a significant mixed‑use investment in downtown Shanghai. The company is testing smaller‑format stores in the UK, US and Poland to meet faster, local shopping patterns and convert urban footfall into regular buyers.
According to the report, the weaker revenue is a deliberate trade‑off rather than a market failure. Ingka pointed to persistent cost‑of‑living pressures, trade and economic uncertainty, and ongoing supply‑chain disruption as the external headwinds that shaped the year, and argued that lowering prices was a tactical move to protect long‑term customer relationships and market share by keeping products within reach.
Across the wider IKEA system, total retail sales reached about €44.5 billion for the period, with Ingka responsible for roughly 87% of that total, underscoring the franchisee’s outsized influence on the brand’s global performance. Ingka said its commercial and environmental goals are mutually reinforcing, pointing to continued investments in renewable energy and carbon reduction alongside pricing strategies and store roll-outs. The company framed those moves as a long‑term play to protect market share and customer loyalty, arguing that affordability and sustainability together will underpin recovery as consumer confidence rebounds.
- To learn more about the impact of Trump’s new tariffs on IKEA’s global supply chains, click here for Wood Central’s special feature.
