Ingka Centres is Focusing on Delivering Meeting Places that Can Make a Difference in the Indian Retail Landscape

Vasco Santos, Global Sales & Leasing Director, Ingka Centres, on the global shopping centre company's plans for India, the country's significance to its business, building spaces that foster communities

- Rasul Bailay

Vasco Santos is the Global Leasing Director at Ingka Centres, part of Ingka Group, which also includes IKEA Retail. Santos holds 28 years of experience in retail and real estate sectors, having worked for a decade for European retailers like Decathlon, Intersport, and Parfois. He joined the Ingka Group in 2006, where he has been performing di erent roles within asset management and leasing. Since December 2018, he has led the global leasing department, with teams spreading from Shanghai to San Francisco.

Ingka Group is the parent company of the renowned global furniture brand IKEA. With centres in the US, Europe and China, the Group is now investing ₹7,500 crore to develop two Ingka Centres in the National Capital Region (NCR). The retail-led mixed-use projects would be home to an IKEA store in addition to dozens of other Indian and global brands.

The rst Ingka Centre—branded in India as Lykli—is scheduled to open in Gurugram in 2025 and it will be followed by another one in Noida. Ingka Centres has announced PVR as the multiplex operator and Le Marche will run a supermarket in the Gurugram mall.

Vasco Santos speaks to Shopping Centre News about India as a potential market for the Swedish retail conglomerate, building spaces that foster communities, India's demanding customers and more. Exited excerpts:

How important is India as a market for Ingka Centres?

We are extremely excited about coming to India. It is a big market, that is considered in the group as a priority market. We are starting with two Ingka Centres that we call meeting places. In Gurugram, the construction is now visible if you pass by the road. Also, we have started in Noida, but it is a project that will come a bit later.

We are a country that is still hungry for shopping centres. How many malls or meeting places can you build in India over the years?