For many people, renting their first flat or buying their first home will result in a trip to Ikea. For that matter even those who have owned or rented property for a long period of time will most likely go to Ikea at some point.

For parents purchasing childrens bedroom furniture, Ikea has shown to be successful for them because they are competitively priced. There are on the other hand those who do not want to sacrifice on the quality of nursery furniture or bunk beds or whatever it might be. If that’s so, perhaps Ikea will not be the best place to do your shopping.

The results of Ikea is without question. They have been extremely prosperous around Europe and have been progressively expanding their market share and the countries in which they operate. America is arguably the largest market for home furniture and if they are successful there then they could expect to have to see their current total sales of €23.1 billion grow substantially bigger.

Ikea has become quite used to having persistently solid growth figures but for the year to August thus far they have managed to increase sales by 1% in the UK and Ireland whilst total sales throughout the world in the same time frame increased by 7.7%.

What this figure highlights is the sensitive state of the economy and consumer confidence in the UK. The shortage of first time buyers on the market as well as the lack of reasonably priced property and reduced credit by the banks and mortgage brokers has all but grounded the market to a stop.

Martin Hansson, IKEA UK and Ireland country manager, said: “It has been another challenging year for us but despite the overall home furnishings market being in decline, we have delivered a small growth. By staying close to our customers we have understood they are more conscious of price but do not want to compromise on quality, design or good service. Therefore, we have focused on always offering the lowest-priced products across each area of the home.” 

Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad who is now one of the world’s richest men, operates in 26 countries with 280 stores. Although with 80% of their sales in 2009 originating from Europe, it is clear that the region is key to their £2.17 billion profit. Nonetheless as the company has been growing over recent years its profit has reduced to £17 million in the UK last year.

Nevertheless, Hanssonn also went on to say that “It might be that people will want to move house less, but I believe they will want to create a haven.”