Ikea mulls Cork expansion as Ballymun grows
Ikea said it still has no “confirmed” plans at the moment to open a second store in the Republic, although an opening in Cork remains on the cards.
“Ikea is committed to growing and investing in Ireland. We are always looking for opportunities and are investigating the potential for a second store in the market, specifically in Cork. However, we have no confirmed plans for the development of an IKEA store at the moment,” said a spokeswoman.
Its Ballymun outlet is among the best-performing stores across Ikea’s global network — it attracted 3.6m shoppers last year.
The Swedish firm said the Ballymun store was ranked ninth in terms of sales of all its 355 stores across 29 countries. It is the first time Ikea has disclosed the Ballymun store’s ranking in the global group, which generated €34.1bn in sales across the world.
A spokeswoman for Ikea Ireland said other stores in the top nine are in Moscow, New York, London, and Seoul.
Ikea Ireland, which includes a collection point at Carrickmines in Dublin, posted a 10% rise in sales, to €166.7m, in the 12 months to the end of August.
Underlining the strong sales performance, the Ballymun store’s home decoration department was ranked No2 in the Ikea group for sales last year and its light department was No 3.
The store had 3.6m shoppers, up 36% in the year. A further 400,000 shoppers used the collection point at Carrickmines. The biggest area of sales growth was bedroom furniture, up 14% in the year.
