IKEA is coming to New Zealand, with the Swedish firm saying it's got a franchisee lined up to open the furniture chain here.
"We are happy to meet the wish from many people for IKEA to open in New Zealand, and we aim to make IKEA fully accessible, including stores and ecommerce," said Tolga Öncü, retail operations manager for Ingka Group, which has been given the New Zealand rights by Inter IKEA Systems.
"We see this as a long-term commitment and investment in New Zealand, building relationships with customers, suppliers and future co-workers."
Ingka has already opened stores in other Asia-Pacific markets. Australia's franchise is run by the IKEA Group itself.
"Ingka Group has a lot of experience operating the IKEA business across the Asia-Pacific and other markets and we are very excited to bring IKEA to New Zealand together with them," said Inter IKEA Systems chief executive Jon Abrahamsson Ring.
"Together we'll make IKEA a loved and meaningful brand for the people in New Zealand."
Ingka says it will release more details about its plans early next year.
There are IKEA stores in 36 different countries, including Malaysia, Taiwan and Australia in this part of the world.
Rumours in 2011 that an IKEA store would open at Auckland's Westgate turned out to be unfounded.
As recently as October IKEA said there were no plans to expand to New Zealand, Stuff reported.
IKEA was founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, when he was just a teenager. He was once estimated to have a fortune of more than €30 billion.
Newshub.
