進入英語學習論壇下載音頻 去聽寫專區一展身手

Swedish home-furnishing giant Ikea Group is on track to expand and upgrade its business across China, with plans to more than double its store numbers on the mainland by 2015.

"We are aiming to have 16 to 18 stores on the Chinese mainland by 2015 in a combination of first-tier and second-tier cities," said Gillian Drakeford, Ikea China's retail president.

After entering China in 1998, Ikea now has eight stores in eight cities across the country.

Ian Duffy, president of Ikea Asia-Pacific, told China Daily that the company grew on average by 15 percent a year in each of the past 12 years.

He predicted that China will be Ikea Group's biggest market in 15 to 25 years.

In the 2010 fiscal year, Ikea's revenue in China increased by 23 percent to 3.7 billion yuan ($555.9 million).

Globally, the group's 315 stores in 38 countries produced 23.1 billion euros ($30.76 billion) in revenue during that period. China is not yet on Ikea's top 10 markets list.

On Wednesday, Ikea started construction of its second store in Beijing in the city's southwestern Daxing district, together with a super-size shopping center, a co-investment of the Ikea Group and its sister company, the Inter Ikea Centre Group.

The shopping center and store, with a total investment of more than 5 billion yuan, is Ikea’s biggest single project investment worldwide, Duffy said.

By 2015, Ikea and Inter Ikea will open two more shopping centers, together with Ikea home-furnishing stores in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, and Wuhan, in Hubei province.

"Shanghai is our next consideration, with similar investment scale," said Duffy.

Ikea started its home-furnishing business in Shanghai and Beijing in rented space. In 2003, it opened its first standard store in the Chinese market in Shanghai, and it stopped renting real estate in 2006.

"All of our stores now and in the future in China will be located on land we have purchased," Drakeford said.

Both Duffy and Drakeford attribute Ikea's success in China to the company's strategy of providing affordable products to more people by continuously lowering prices.

Ikea has established a business system in China that covers production, sourcing, logistics and retail. "That's the reason we can reduce the price of our products in China, for example, a coffee table from 199 yuan 10 years ago to 39 yuan today - the cheapest in the world," Duffy said.

Questions:

1. What is Ikea’s plan in China?

2. How many stores do they have in China, and how many will they have by 2015?

3. When did Ikea first enter China?

Answers:

1. Ikea Group plans to more than double its store numbers on the mainland by 2015.

2. 16 to 18 stores on the Chinese mainland by 2015. Ikea now has eight stores in eight cities across the country.

3. 1998.

去聽寫專區一展身手

（中國日報網英語點津 Helen 編輯）

About the broadcaster:

Nelly Min is an editor at China Daily with more than 10 years of experience as a newspaper editor and photographer. She has worked at major newspapers in the U.S., including the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit Free Press. She is also fluent in Korean.