IKEA says 15% of its UK sales now take place online, after a year in which internet sales increased by 10%. The homeware company today announced total UK sales of £1.8bn in the year to August 31 2017, up by 5.8% on the same time last year.

IKEA UK country retail manager Gillian Drakeford said: “As we celebrate our 30th anniversary this year, we remain committed to the UK and are proud to have achieved another successful year of growth. This is testament to the talent of our co-workers and our ambition to inspire customers with the

best possible experience.”

Ikea aims to take 15% of the home furnishings market by 2027 and says that becoming more accessible helped it to increase its share by 0.5% in the past year. During the year it launched a new website and opened new stores in Reading and Sheffield. Branches in Exeter and Greenwich are to follow. In total, 57.2m people visited its stores during the year, lifting store sales by 5.7%.

“We have ambitious expansion plans for the UK and are committed to making Ikea more accessible to the many,” said Ms Drakeford. “As well as opening new stores we are enhancing existing stores. Half way through the year we refurbished all living room departments in preparation for this year’s ‘Make Room for Life’ campaign and we are already seeing a great response to this. We rebuilt many of our self-serve areas by creating wider aisles so that it’s a safer and more pleasant shopping experience for customers.

“We have expanded our service proposition, providing our customers with more choice and convenience. In addition to our global acquisition of TaskRabbit, we  launched click and collect in all Order and Collection points.”