Swedish home furnishing major Ikea prepares to open its first store in India at Hyderabad next year.

The company, which received government approval in 2013 for its Rs 10,500 crore proposal to open retail stores under 100 per cent FDI, is also looking for more sites in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru as part of its plans to open 25 stores in nine Indian cities by 2025.

“We will open our first store in Hyderabad in later half of 2017. Digging for construction of our first store in India started this week,” Ikea Asia Pacific Retail president, Mikael Palmquist told newsmen.

IKEA’s first store in Hyderabad will be a massive 4 lakh square feet in size and will include all features of a global IKEA store, including restaurant and play and development area.

“After Hyderabad, in the first phase of growth, we plan to open stores in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. We are searching for land in these cities. We want to open more than one stores in locations where our stores come up,” Palmquist added.