Ikea's first India store opens today, aims to reach 200 mn people in 3 yrs

The company's products offering was based on a thorough understanding of the needs and aspirations of Indian households.

 

Companies News: Ikea aims to reach 200 million people in India in the next three years and its journey is going to be based on affordability and accessibility, the Swedish home furnishings chain’s Group Chief Executive Officer Jesper Brodin said on Wednesday on the eve of the launch of the company’s first Indian store in Hyderabad.

Brodin said the company would like to keep the product prices within the reach of various segments of the society without compromising on quality. The furniture retailer, he added, wanted to expand its footprint in other Indian cities as quickly as possible to gain a significant share in one of the largest markets in the world. In 2013, the Centre had cleared Ikea's Rs105-billion foreign direct investment (FDI) proposal to set up 25 single brand retail stores in the country. Of this investment commitment, the company has invested Rs10 billion on the Hyderabad store, which has a 400,000-square-foot built-up area, besides acquiring land in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi to set up similar stores in the coming years.

Ikea First India Store

He said the company’s products offering was based on a thorough understanding of the needs and aspirations of Indian households, and in this process it had also learnt new things that could be replicated in other stores outside India.

The first store in Hyderabad will be followed by online presence, a store and touch points in Mumbai next year. Subsequently, it will set up one store each in Bengaluru and National Capital Region (NCR). Besides, the company is also planning to invest Rs7.5 billion to build its own warehouses and a large distribution centre in Maharashtra in the next three years, as most of its import consignments reach Indian shores via Mumbai port.

In the next phase, Ikea will expand to other cities, such as Ahmedabad, Surat, Pune, Chennai and…continue reading

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News Source : BS

Microsoft becomes third most valuable firm, surpasses Alphabet

The credit for Microsoft’s rise goes to its CEO Satya Nadella who has been strategically restructuring the company towards Cloud and Office offerings.

Company News : Microsoft has surpassed Alphabet, the parent company of Google, in the market capitalisation for the first time in three years, becoming the third most valuable firm after Apple and Amazon globally.

According to a report in Investor’s Business Daily late Tuesday, Microsoft had a market cap of $753 billion at the close of trading, almost $14 billion ahead of Alphabet.

Apple leads with a market cap of nearly $924 billion and Amazon is at distant second, with nearly $783 billion.

The credit for Microsoft’s rise goes to its CEO Satya Nadella who has been strategically restructuring the company towards Cloud and Office offerings.

Driven by consistent growth in its Office and Cloud solutions, Microsoft posted a revenue of $26.8 billion and net income of $7.4 billion in its third quarter that ended on March 31.

“We are innovating across key growth categories of infrastructure, AI, productivity and business applications to deliver differentiated value to customers,” Nadella said.

Office commercial products and Cloud services revenue increased 14 per cent — driven by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 42 per cent.

The Azure cloud offering had 93 per cent revenue growth. Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes was $9 billion and increased 17 per cent in the quarter.

Microsoft now has over 135 million active Office 365 business users, with 30.6 million Office 365 consumer users.

Revenue in Intelligent Cloud was $7.9 billion and increased 17 per cent.

Read More → Most Valuable Firm