The furniture giant is also closing stores in Ukraine and stopping purchases in Belarus
The iconic Swedish furniture brand IKEA closes all its stores in Russia and pauses all its purchases in Russia and Belarus when the war in Ukraine enters its second week. Stores in Kyiv were also closed on Thursday, according to the company’s website.
“The war has both a huge human impact and results in serious disruptions in the supply chain and trade conditions, which is why the company groups have decided to temporarily pause IKEA’s operations in Russia,” said brand owner Inter IKEA and store owner Ingka Group in a press release. a joint statement on Thursday.
Inter IKEA is responsible for delivery, while Ingka Group owns most IKEA department stores worldwide, including all 17 in Russia.
Russia was IKEA’s tenth largest market during the year until last August. At that time, retail sales amounted to $ 1.8 billion, or 4% of total retail sales.
At the same time, Belarus is only a purchasing market for the company, without stores in the country.
The furniture manufacturer has joined a number of international companies that have already stopped operating in Russia. H&M Group has temporarily stopped working with all its brands, while large online retailers such as Farfetch, ASOS, Yoox Net-a-Porter Group stopped delivering goods to the country. US technology giant Apple reopened stores in Russia on Thursday after changing product prices due to the weakening local currency. The company’s stores were closed the day before and its official website had stopped deliveries and blocked some of its services.
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(RT.com)
Source: sn.dk