Ikea's sole store in Romania sold 50 million products in the last five years, while its increasingly popular restaurant sold 13 million meatballs, the furniture retailer has announced. The restaurant also sold 1,300 km of hotdogs. Five years after the opening of its furniture store in Bucharest, Ikea welcomed 14.3 million customers to its store and 3 million visitors to its website.

“We are only at the beginning on the Romanian market and we believe there is a high development potential, on retail, as well as for local production,” said Mikael Ohlsson, president and CEO of IKEA Group, who came to Bucharest for the local store's five-year anniversary.

The retailer's objective for the next five years is to “get closer to more and more Romanians,” said Cornel Oprişan, Retail Manager IKEA România. His statement hints at Ikea's long awaited expansion with more stores in the country, but the retailer has not yet officially announced any new Romanian stores.

The store in Romania, opened in 2007 under franchise, is now owned by the Ikea chain, which runs a total of 320 stores in the world. Only 37 of them are franchises.

editor@romania-insider.com