Feodor Ingvar Kamprad was a Swedish billionaire business magnate best known for founding IKEA in 1943, a multinational and largest retail company specialising in furniture. He lived in Switzerland from 1976 to 2014
Kamprad displayed entrepreneurial skills as a boy when he began selling matches to neighbours. In 1943, at age 17, he founded a company called IKEA, the name based on his own initials.He initially sold such items as picture frames, jewelry, and nylon stockings over the telephone; as the business grew, he started distributing catalogs. In 1948 Kamprad began selling inexpensive furniture, and the new merchandise proved to be so popular that in 1951 IKEA began to offer only home furnishings. Two years later he opened a showroom in Almhult, Sweden. In 1956 Kamprad introduced to IKEA’s inventory flat-boxed furniture that was designed to be assembled at home. This proved to be the company’s breakthrough. IKEA stores followed, first in several countries in western Europe and later in other regions. Over the next 50 years, nearly 300 IKEA stores opened around the world.In 2000 IKEA began selling merchandise on the Internet, and the company expanded rapidly. By 2003 it was so popular that its catalog had the world’s largest annual print run, and by 2009 the catalog was being issued in more than two dozen languages. IKEA’s phenomenal success made Kamprad one of the richest men in the world in the early 21st century.