Ikea wants 2 million people within 60 miles of a store, apparently, though they've started experimenting with smaller stores in smaller markets.
http://blog.syracuse.com/at-home/2009/11/no_ikea_here_not_ev...
> remember, ikea is expanding globally
And they're expanding mainly with their own money. They're a family-owned company without outside investors. Ingvar Kamprad is pretty economically conservative.
remember, ikea is expanding globally. on my last vacation, i saw an ikea identical to the one by my house in california, in southern germany. that's really sort of unprecedented at the scale of an ikea store.