INTRODUCTION

I have chosen to describe the furniture market in this report. In UK, more precisely in Coventry there is a lot of Furniture Shop: IKEA, Home base, Harveys, B&Q, Argos, etc.
I’m particularly interested to know how IKEA has succeeded to be one of the strongest furniture companies in UK and in the rest of the world. That’s why I have decided to study the furniture market in UK for this report. In this way, I will study IKEA Company in the third report. Furthermore, the major part of students in Coventry has bought their furniture at IKEA. In deed, the main target of IKEA is people who haven’t a strong purchasing power. I have wanted to know why IKEA is today one of the most attractive furniture stores for students. In this report we are going to see the current statement of the furniture market.

Market Analysis

The United Kingdom population is about 60 million inhabitants, there were already 24.1 million households in 2001. Experts predict that this number will increase to 26.2 households by 2011. The country is characterized by the high number of single person households (5.8 million in 2001, predicting 8.5 million in 2021).
The acquisition of furniture is influenced by the housing market, which has worked very hard until 2008. However, an area hard hit by the current economic crisis, the housing market suffers soaring prices and thereby also affects the furniture market in the United Kingdom. In 2009, sales of furniture in the United Kingdom were similar to those of its main European neighbours:

|Country |Furniture Sales in 2009 |
|United Kingdom |16,32 billion dollars |
|Germany |15 billion dollars |
|France