In 1943, then-17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad founded IKEA as a mail-order sales business, and began to sell furniture five years later.The first store was opened in Älmhult, Småland, in 1958, under the name Möbel-IKÉA (Möbel means "furniture" in Swedish). The first stores outside Sweden were opened in Norway (1963) and Denmark (1969). The stores spread to other parts of Europe in the 1970s, with the first store outside Scandinavia opening in Switzerland (1973), followed by West Germany (1974), Japan (1974), Australia, Hong Kong (1975), Canada (1976) , Singapore and the Netherlands (1978). IKEA further expanded in the 1980s, opening stores in countries such as France and Spain (1981), Belgium (1984), the United States (1985), the United Kingdom (1987), and Italy (1989). Germany, with 55 stores, is IKEA's biggest market, followed by the United States, with 52 stores.