World's biggest Ikea store to open in Manila

Ikea will open its world's largest store in Manila in 2020. (Ikea photo)

MANILA: The world's largest Ikea store will open in 2020 in the Philippines as the Swedish furniture retailer presses on its bets in Asia.

"Ikea will debut a 65,000-square-metre store in SM Prime Holdings Inc's Mall of Asia where it's leasing a space that's equal to more than 150 basketball courts,'' Ikea Southeast Asia managing-director Christian Rojkjaer said at the launch of the Philippine website.

A typical Ikea big blue-box is about 35,000 square metres.

"Ikea will spend an initial 7 billion pesos (4.4 billion baht) to build, stock, and staff the store, which will carry 9,000 products,'' Rojkjaer said.

The Manila complex will have a two-level shop, a warehouse, an e-commerce facility and a call centre that will serve more than five million households within a 60-minute radius. The company will employ 500 staff.

The Philippines, where the growing middle class is forecast to spend more than Italy's by 2030, has a population of more than 105 million people dominated by a working-age demographic.

The economy has expanded above 6% for 13 straight quarters, fueled by private consumption which makes up the bulk of gross domestic product.

The world's largest furniture retailer is expanding rapidly in Asia. It debuted the first of 25 stores in India in August. Last week, it said it would open the first city-centre store in Tokyo in 2020 near one of its busiest metro stations.

The Mall of Asia complex sits across Manila's gaming district where integrated casino resorts worth more than $1 billion each have sprouted and attracted mainland Chinese tourist traffic that has driven up property prices.