Challenging pandemic year for IKEA

The furniture giant IKEA had a relatively difficult year during the fiscal year 2021 (ending in 8/2021) as the traffic to the stores globally declined 8%. Despite the dip in traffic, IKEA was able to grow sales by around 6%.

This is a solid growth rate during a difficult pandemic year. For comparison much smaller competitor Jysk grew their sales by 7%. IKEA’s longer term growth rate has gradually declined from the 10+% growth rates in the early 2000s to around 5% in 2010s.

For IKEA, like almost all other big retailers, the pandemic forced a big step up in the growth of the online sales. Online sales grew by 78% and represent now up to 26% of all sales for IKEA.