Ingka Group Reports Fiscal Year 2024 Performance

December 1, 2024  by Karen Parrish in Business Strategy, Industry   

The company reduced prices by EUR 2.1 billion, prioritising affordability of IKEA products over profit. This helped to boost store and online visitation by 3.3% and 28% respectively, with the number of online orders increasing 9%. IKEA Retail delivered sales of EUR 39.6 billion, a decrease of 5% compared to last year (EUR 41.7 billion in 2023). 

At the same time, the company continued to transform into a better business with capital expenditures into areas such as fulfilment capabilities, customer experiences, real estate development, renewable energy, and responsible forestry, totaling EUR 3.4 billion.

Juvenoid Maeztu, Deputy CEO and CFO Ingka Group (IKEA) said: “It was a year of courageously investing in the future to make IKEA more affordable, accessible, and sustainable. For us, it has never been more important to side with the many people. Our unique business structure and financial independence enable us to make choices and invest for decades to come, making us more resilient to global and economic events and allowing us to remain focused on our business and our customers for the long-term. We have also stayed focused on our ambitious sustainability goals, working to future-proof our business.”

Ingka Group’s operating income was EUR 1.3 billion (FY23: 2.0 billion). The FY24 net income was EUR 0.8 billion (FY23: EUR 1.5 billion). Enabled by the company’s unique ownership model, 85% of net profit is reinvested back into the business, the remaining 15% is paid as dividend to the company’s sole owner, the Stichting INGKA Foundation.

The Stichting INGKA Foundation’s charitable purpose is to fund the IKEA Foundation, an independent, strategic philanthropy that focuses its grant making efforts on tackling the two biggest threats to children’s futures: poverty and climate change. By December 2023, the IKEA Foundation reached the milestone of granting EUR 2 billion to its partners. 

“Our profit is very meaningful: it gives us the resources necessary to make us a better company, both now and in the future. To create a better life at home in ways that go beyond affordable, sustainable and functional furnishings, we are proud that a significant amount of our net profit benefits charitable causes,” added Maeztu.

Ingka Group’s sustainability commitments include reducing its climate footprint in its own operations by 85% by 2030 (from a 2016 baseline) and becoming net zero by reducing absolute greenhouse gas emissions from the entire value chain up- and downstream, by at least 50% by 2030 and 90% by 2050. Contributing to these targets, EUR 1.5 billion is invested as part of the renewable energy transformation. It will be used to accelerate ongoing efforts to retrofit IKEA units with renewable heating and cooling technology. All new units will be built with the new technology and last year eleven retail units in seven countries were retrofitted.

Ingka Investments, which plays a vital role in supporting Ingka Group’s long-term growth and sustainability ambitions, has so far invested and committed EUR 4.2 billion in off-site renewable energy, making it a mid-sized renewable energy production company. This is a part of a previously announced EUR 7.5 billion investment commitment up to 2030 in off-site renewable energy production and technologies.

Ingka Centres results were driven by the strong performance of portfolios in Europe and China. Global expansion continued with the acquisition of Churchill Square in Brighton, UK, the opening of Saluhall, Ingka Group’s first plant-forward food hall in San Francisco, US, as well as the opening of the Livat meeting place in Xi’an, China – the ninth Livat meeting place in the market.

Ingka Centres sold its total Russian portfolio of 14 MEGA meeting places in September 2023.

In FY24, Ingka’s corporate income tax was EUR 0.8 billion (FY23 EUR 0.7 billion) globally, the total tax bill, including other taxes and duties such as property taxes, environmental taxes and customs duties, amounted to approximately EUR 1.2 billion.

The Ingka Group FY24 Annual Summary and Sustainability Report will be published in January 2025. The Report will include the company’s total climate footprint and outlines its goals and includes status on sustainability targets. Performance is evaluated by working to be better in four ways: Better homes, Better lives, Better planet and Better company.