Housing downturn hits Ikea

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Ikea, the Swedish retail chain, is suffering like-for-like sales declines in some of its major markets and has warned that the pattern could spread across Europe as falling house prices hit flat-pack furniture sales.

“It is especially when the housing market is down [that] it certainly affects our type of business,” said Anders Dahlvig, chief executive of Ikea, the world’s largest furniture retailer.

“We see it not only in markets [such as] the US or UK… but we see it in Spain, we see it in Italy, we see it in Germany… Of course this will probably spill over to other European markets as well; I can see that in the coming months.”

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