50 Fun Facts About IKEA

The blue and yellow of every IKEA store are the national colours of which country?

The company was founded there in 1943 and opened its first store in the province of Småland in 1958.

The letters I and K in IKEA stand for the founder's name. What do the E and A stand for?

Elmtaryd was the family farm and Agunnaryd the nearby village.

How old was Ingvar Kamprad when he founded IKEA in 1943?

It began as a mail-order business selling pens, wallets and picture frames; furniture only arrived five years later.

What did the young Ingvar Kamprad buy in bulk from Stockholm and resell to his neighbours?

He moved on to seeds, pens and Christmas decorations before founding a company at 17.

In which small Swedish town did the first IKEA store open in 1958?

The IKEA Museum now occupies that original building.

IKEA's first flat-pack product, the leaf-shaped Lövet table of 1956, was born when a designer did what?

Gillis Lundgren was moving it for a catalogue shoot; the table was reissued in 2013 as the Lövbacken.

According to IKEA, the main reason customers assemble the furniture themselves is to avoid what?

Flat boxes cut freight and packaging costs, which is what lets the prices stay low.

Which was the first country outside its homeland to get an IKEA store, in 1963?

Denmark followed in 1969, Switzerland became the first outside Scandinavia in 1973, and West Germany came a year later.

In what year did IKEA open its first store in the United States?

The US and Germany now each have around 55 stores, more than any other countries.

IKEA entered Japan in 1974, withdrew in 1986, and returned in which year?

The first attempt struggled with Japanese customers who expected assembled furniture and smaller sizes.

The world's largest IKEA store, opened in 2021, is in which city?

At 65,000 square metres it took the title from the Kungens Kurva store outside Stockholm.

In which city did IKEA open its first Indian store, in August 2018?

The company had spent years there sourcing textiles before it was allowed to sell directly.

In March 2022 IKEA announced it was closing all 17 of its stores in which country?

It had entered the market in 2000 and its stores had been among the busiest in the world.

Since which year has IKEA been the world's largest furniture retailer?

It now runs more than 500 stores in around 60 countries with revenue north of €44 billion.

What does IKEA call the one-way route that steers customers counter-clockwise through a store?

Shortcuts exist, but the design is meant to walk you past everything before you reach the checkouts.

IKEA sofas and coffee tables are named after places in which country?

Beds get Norwegian place names, textiles Danish ones, lamps are seas and lakes, and outdoor furniture is islands.

IKEA lamps take their names from what?

The naming system exists partly because the founder was dyslexic and found words easier to remember than product codes.

Why did Ingvar Kamprad prefer real words to product codes for naming furniture?

The result is a catalogue full of Swedish place names, lakes and islands.

The Billy bookcase was named after whom?

Billy Liljedahl wanted "a proper bookcase just for books", and Gillis Lundgren sketched it on a napkin in 1979.

In 2020, roughly how often was a Billy bookcase being sold somewhere in the world?

More than 140 million had been sold by 2023, and Bloomberg once ran a "Billy index" to compare prices across countries.

The Poäng armchair was designed in the 1970s by Noboru Nakamura, a designer from which country?

It launched in 1976 as the Poem and was renamed and given a wooden frame in 1992 so it could be flat-packed.

What was the Poäng chair originally called when it launched in 1976?

By 2016 IKEA was selling about 1.5 million a year and had made 30 million in total.

The Klippan sofa, launched in 1980, is named after what?

It was designed to fit through a standard doorway and has sold with interchangeable covers ever since.

What is the children's play area in every IKEA store called?

The name means "small lands" and is also the Swedish province where IKEA was founded.

The first IKEA store's café became a full restaurant in which year?

Food is now about 5 percent of IKEA's sales, and menus adapt locally: shawarma in the Middle East, poutine in Canada.

IKEA's plant-based meatballs are made from pea protein, oats, potatoes and which fruit?

The vegetable version launched in 2015 after a year of testing; the classic pork-and-beef köttbullar remain the bestseller.

Roughly what share of IKEA's total sales comes from food?

The company operates restaurants in 38 countries plus the Swedish Food Market by the checkouts.

The IKEA catalogue was first published in which year?

The first edition was 68 pages in Swedish with a print run of 285,000.

At its 2016 peak, roughly how many copies of the IKEA catalogue were printed?

That was 69 versions in 32 languages, and more copies than the Bible that year.

After how many years in print did IKEA stop publishing its catalogue in 2020?

By 2004 the catalogue had been eating 70 percent of the marketing budget; the shift to digital finally ended it.

The catalogue was shot at what IKEA described as northern Europe's largest what?

The studio covers 8,000 square metres; by 2013 about 12 percent of catalogue images were computer-generated.

In 2017 which luxury fashion house sold a $2,145 tote that looked just like IKEA's blue Frakta bag?

IKEA said it was "deeply flattered"; the original costs 99 cents and holds 25 kilos.

The "IKEA effect", named in a 2011 study, describes what?

Subjects would pay 63 percent more for furniture they had assembled; the researchers cited 1950s cake mixes as an early example.

The three researchers who coined the IKEA effect were based at Harvard, Yale and which other university?

Michael Norton, Daniel Mochon and Dan Ariely tested it with IKEA boxes, Lego and origami.

The Economist in 2006 called the Dutch foundation controlling most IKEA stores the world's wealthiest what?

The Stichting INGKA Foundation, set up by Kamprad in 1982, was also called one of the least generous; it has since given more than €2 billion.

Which company owns the IKEA trademark and franchises the concept from Delft?

Ingka Group runs most of the stores as a franchisee; IKEA of Sweden in Älmhult develops the range.

What car did the billionaire Ingvar Kamprad famously drive for years?

He also flew economy and furnished his home from his own stores; "We don't need flashy cars, impressive titles, uniforms or other status symbols."

What did Kamprad call "the greatest mistake of my life" when letters surfaced in 1994?

The letters showed involvement from 1942 to 1945; later research suggested the ties went deeper than he admitted.

In what year did Ingvar Kamprad die?

He was 91; half his estate went to development projects in northern Sweden.

When Swedish suppliers boycotted IKEA around 1961, where did it move much of its manufacturing?

The move behind the Iron Curtain kept prices down and set the pattern for global sourcing.

IKEA's smart-home push began in 2016 with which product line?

The Sonos-built SYMFONISK speakers followed after a partnership announced in December 2017.

Which odd-jobs marketplace did IKEA buy in 2017 to help customers get furniture assembled?

The company had also begun test-marketing furniture rental by 2019.

IKEA's prefabricated housing venture BoKlok, launched in 1996, was a joint venture with which construction firm?

The name means roughly "live smart", and the homes have since been built in Britain and Finland too.

Which was the first IKEA store outside Scandinavia, opened in 1973?

West Germany and Japan followed in 1974; today Germany and the United States are the biggest markets with 55 stores each.

The Interogo Foundation, which ultimately owns the IKEA brand's holding company, is based in which country?

Swedish broadcaster SVT revealed in 2009 that the foundation, controlled by the Kamprad family, had amassed some $12 billion.

IKEA opened Hubhult, a corporate meeting and digital hub, in 2015 in which Swedish city?

Core operations such as design and range management remain in Älmhult, home of the first store and the IKEA Museum.

IKEA is reported to be the largest private landowner in which European country since 2015?

The company owns about 180,000 hectares of forest in Europe and roughly 55,000 hectares in the United States.

What did IKEA stop giving customers in March 2013?

Reusable bags are sold instead, and the restaurants use only reusable plates and cutlery.

In 2020 IKEA answered the November shopping frenzy with which trade-in campaign for old furniture?

The message was to give old furniture a new life instead of buying new items in the sales.

How many IKEA stores did Germany have by 2025, tying the US as the biggest market?

The US figure includes three stores in Puerto Rico; worldwide there were more than 500 stores across 60 countries.