IKEA Group, the world's biggest furniture retailer, posted on January 28 a fiscal full-year net profit that was unchanged from the year before and said the European market continued to improve. Net profit at the Swedish flat-packed budget furniture company, which owns most IKEA stores world-wide, was 3.3 billion euros ($3.7 billion) in the 12 months through August 2014.
IKEA said the profit stayed flat mainly due to a 200 million euro contribution to an employee loyalty programme and a growing number of staff taking part in a bonus programme, for which it booked a 98 million cost.
"In the past year, we grew in almost all our markets, with China, Russia and Hungary being the fastest growing," Chief Executive Peter Agnefjall said in a statement.
"North America performed well and while the challenging economic situation may not be over, Europe continued to show improvements. An especially positive sign was the growth in most of southern Europe," he said.
The group, which has the bulk of business in Europe with Germany, the United States and France its biggest single markets, said it gained market share in nearly all its markets and repeated a target to grow sales to 50 billion euros by 2020.
The company had earlier reported a 5.9 percent rise in full-year sales, with stores open a year or more accounting for 3.6 percent, to 28.7 billion euros.