- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Italy targets climate activists in 'anti-Gandhi' demo clampdown
- US trade chief defends tariff hikes when paired with investment
- EU court blocks French ban on vegetable 'steak' labelling
- Meta AI turns pictures into videos with sound
- US dockworkers return to ports after three-day strike
- DR Congo to begin mpox vaccination campaign Saturday in east
- Meta must limit data use for targeted ads: EU court
- Oil extends gains, jobs report lifts Wall Street
- US hiring soars past expectations in sign of resilient market
- As EU targets Chinese cars, European rivals sputter
- Top EU court finds against FIFA in key transfer market ruling
- Oil extends gains, Hong Kong stocks resume rally
- 'A man provides': Ukrainian miners send families away as Russia advances
- EU states greenlight extra tariffs on EVs from China
- Hong Kong stocks resume rally, oil dips after Middle East-fuelled surge
- Crude stable after Israel-Iran surge, Hong Kong stocks resume gains
- Hera spacecraft to probe asteroid deflected by defence test
- US dockworkers to head back to work after tentative deal
- After Helene's destruction, North Carolina starts to rebuild
- Dockers end three-day strike at Montreal port
- What next for OpenAI after $157 billion bonanza?
- Israel-Hamas war causes 86-percent dive in Gaza GDP: IMF
- Milan's Morata moves house after Inter-fan town mayor 'violates' privacy
- 'Devastating' storm hits Augusta National but Masters will go on
- Relief in Brazil, Asia over delay to EU deforestation rules
- Oil prices jump, stocks fall on Middle East tensions
- Biden says 'discussing' possible Israeli strikes on Iran oil facilities
- Oil prices rise, stocks fall on Middle East tensions
- Oil rallies, stocks mostly retreat on Middle East tensions
- Phasing out teen smoking could save 1.2 mn lives: study
- 'Welcome relief': Asia producers hail EU deforestation law delay
- Japan PM slated to announce plans for 'happiness index'
- Turkish inflation falls less than expected in September at 49.4%
- Easing inflation lifts profit at UK supermarket Tesco
- Skiing calls on UN climate science to combat melting future
- China wine industry looks to breed climate resilience
- Tokyo rallies on weak yen, Hong Kong drops after surge
- Dutch airline KLM unveils 'firm' cost-cutting measures
- Carpe diem: the Costa Rican women turning fish into fashion
- Senegal looks to aquaculture as fish stocks dwindle
- Will AI one day win a Nobel Prize?
- Climate change, economics muddy West's drive to curb Chinese EVs
- Argentina's Milei vetoes university budget after huge protests
- TotalEnergies plans to grow oil and gas production until 2030
- 2024 Nobels offer glimmer of hope as global crises mount
- Tokyo rallies on weak yen, Hong Kong reverses after surge
'Challenging' year for Ikea, 10,000 layoffs in Russia
Swedish furniture giant Ikea posted a six percent rise in full-year sales on Thursday, in what it described as a "challenging" year due to inflation and scaling back in Russia.
Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Ikea closed its 17 shops and halted production in the country, where it was one of the largest Western employers before the war with 15,000 employees.
According to Dutch holding company Inter Ikea's CEO Jon Abrahamsson Ring, a "substantial reduction" of employees had already been carried out.
The 2022 fiscal year "was a challenging year for the world, of course with all the things going on around us with pandemics but also very steep increasing inflation," Abrahamsson Ring told AFP.
Jesper Brodin, the CEO of Ingka, a holding company that manages most of Ikea's stores, told AFP that they "had to say goodbye" to around 10,000 staff out of the 12,000 retail employees in Ikea's Russian stores.
Before the war, the Russian market represented about four to five percent of the group's sales.
Total sales from the international furniture behemoth's hundreds of shops came in at 44.6 billion euros ($43.4 billion) for the period September 2021-August 2022, Inter Ikea said in a statement.
However it meanwhile noted that "sales have grown in money, but sales quantities have not kept up. In addition, supply chain shortages made it difficult to keep Ikea shelves full."
Excluding currency effects, revenue growth was lower at 3.5 percent.
"We had to increase our prices across the whole of Ikea," Abrahamsson Ring said.
- Price rises -
The chief executive explained that the operations had been hurt by supply constraints -- especially in Asia -- plus increased prices for raw materials and the situation in Russia.
In December 2021, as the current wave of inflation began rearing its head, Ikea announced an average increase of nine percent in its prices.
Raising prices was "against our mission, but we were forced," Abrahamsson Ring said, adding that while they did not want to raise prices more they "can't exclude it."
The furniture giant -- which in recent years has started launching new smaller stores close to the city centre -- had a total of 474 stores at the end of August, compared to 458 a year earlier, despite the closures in Russia, the company said.
During the year, Ikea also opened its first store in South America, in the Chilean capital Santiago.
Brodin meanwhile said that on the supply front "there was a much improved situation" in recent months, "even if we're not back to normal."
"By the end of the (fiscal year) we actually had double digit growth, we hadn't seen that in a long time," Brodin told AFP.
Founded in 1943 in southern Sweden by the late Ingvar Kamprad, Ikea is not listed on any stock exchange and is therefore not obliged to communicate its financial results.
Following accusations of a lack of financial transparency and tax optimisation schemes, the group started publishing partial results in 2010.
O.Ignatyev--CPN