The Swedish multinational furniture store IKEA is making a major move towards smart home tech in the hope of making it a source of new revenue. In support of this, the furniture giant has announced that it will invest extensively in a new ‘Ikea Home smart’ business unit with end-to-end responsibility for its burgeoning portfolio of smart devices.
With access to more than 780 million shoppers who visit Ikea stores each year around the world, the announcement also serves as a wake-up call to smart home incumbents like Google, Amazon and other major tech vendors.
“We have decided to invest significantly in Home smart across Ikea to fast-forward the development. This is the biggest New Business we are establishing since the introduction of Children’s Ikea,” said Peter van der Poel, manager Ikea Range & Supply. The new business unit is helmed by Björn Block, and sits alongside IKEA’s ten other business units that include Lighting, Livingroom & Workspace, Textiles, Kitchen and Dining, and Ikea Food.
Smart home ambitions of IKEA first became visible in 2015 with the introduction of tables and lamps that could wirelessly charge Qi-compatible phones. In 2017, it expanded into affordable smart lighting, before partnering with Sonos for this month’s launch of relatively inexpensive whole-home audio. IKEA is expected to start selling its first smart blinds in the US in October.
The furniture-major will now join other corporate behemoths such as Google, Amazon and Apple in competing for smart home customers. But luckily for the other tech giants, IKEA has taken a platform-agnostic approach, with its products supporting the Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa ecosystems through its Tradfri gateway.
Smart homes are the next trend among customers that tech companies hope will propel them into even greater growth. According to industry analysts, global sales of smart home devices could top 830 million by the end of 2019, before nearly doubling to 1.6 billion units in 2023. It is no wonder then that the Swedish company known for its price-friendly home furnishing is so keen on expanding beyond its conventional turf and looking into digital transformation of its product range.
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