Ikea is a firm registered in Sweden, which sells ready to assemble furniture, homewares and appliances. At present, Ikea is the largest furniture retailer in the world.

Ikea stands for Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd. The first two letters I and K stand for Ingvar Kamprad, the founder’s name while letters E and A stand for Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd, the names of the town and village where the founder grew up.

Ikea operates in over 40 countries selling a wide range of household items ranging from furniture, home accessories and wares and even appliances at affordable prices.

Ikea history

Ikea started in 1943 in a small village named Agunnaryd in Sweden. Its founder, Ingvar Kamprad started Ikea when he was just 17. Kamprad’s father gave him money to reward him for doing well in school. In turn, Kamprad founded Ikea and started selling pens, pictures, wallets, table runner, frames, nylon-stocking, jewelry and watches at a much cheaper prices.

Ikea started advertising its goods two years after its creation, when Kamprad no longer had time to do house calls for all his clients.

In 1948, Ikea started including furniture in its merchandise that was sourced from the local manufacturers. It started publishing its own catalogue that started its foray into wide selling of furniture.

Ikea opened its first showroom in 1953 in Älmhult, Sweden where its clients can finally see and touch the products before buying them. Five years after, the firm opened its own store that had 6,700 square meters of home furnishings, making it the biggest furniture display in Scandinavia at that time.

At present, Ikea has stores 294 stores in 40 countries.

It landed the 41st spot in Forbes’ world’s most valuable brand with total sales of $35.5 billion. Its founder has an estimated fortune of $3.3 billion which he donated mostly to charity.