Martin Hansson folds his 6ft 5in frame into a sofa in an Ikea showroom. Over his shoulder - unnoticed by the Swede, who recently took charge of the furniture group's British business - a buggy is precariously loaded with familiar yellow and blue carrier bags, until it loses its battle with the laws of mechanics and tips, catapulting a young child on to the floor.

Moments later, a young mother with dank hair, wearing gold jewellery and tracksuit bottoms, tentatively taps him on the shoulder. “I need to talk to someone about getting a settee on hire purchase,” she asks.

Even as consumers have cut out discretionary spending in favour of paying off long-neglected debts and mortgages - and as competitors, mere mortals, have gone to the wall - Ikea bounds along, apparently unscathed. As a privately owned Swedish company, it does not issue figures, but, as it seeks to open even more of its gargantuan stores, it is fair to say that it is not among the credit crunch casualties.

“We have an important role to play in times like this. I think this is a good time for Ikea,” Mr Hansson, 34, said. “Of course we're affected by the economy, but we also get new customers coming to us who want to explore. We know because they ask: ‘How do you shop in Ikea?'” Astonishing. How can there be anyone left in Britain who does not know how to shop at Ikea?

Its first store opened in Britain only 21 years ago. Since then, it has become synonymous with cheap, minimalist Scandinavian style and indecipherable instructions. It has been the subject of derision, jokes and, at the opening

of a store in Edmonton in 2005, a riot. The cult of Ikea, with its giant yellow and blue cathedrals dotted over the country, has become part of our - Britain's - culture.

Mr Hansson was educated in the way of Ikea by working as an assistant to Ingvar Kamprad, who founded the firm more than 60 years ago. He claims that there is a mission behind the pine furniture: among his endearing turns of phrase is that Ikea is “for the many people”.

“One of the fundamental things about working for Ikea is the values,” he said. “Being for the many people. Straightforwardness. Simplicity. Humbleness. We're a business as well, of course, and we want to do good business. Why is that contradictory?”

Whatever Ikea's secret may be, it clearly works, for while it marches on, others have stumbled and fallen, from high-profile collapses such as MFI and The Pier to an unseen tide of independents. And each failure seems merely to feed the Ikea monster.

“If I buy a kitchen with Ikea, I know they're going to be there in six months' time,” Mr Hansson said. Shoppers who are wary of parting with their pounds like that kind of security.

They like to spend a minimum of cash, too. “For the time being, we're selling more of the low-priced products that we do, which is, of course, linked to being for the many people.” And the housing slowdown and the wider recession has the added benefit of forcing people to spend longer looking at their wallpaper, which means that is not only spending on cheap adornments that Ikea can hope to harvest, but higher-margin items.

In Mr Hansson's words, Ikea is “not just for customers with a thin wallet, but also for customers with a taste in more expensive furniture. People will stay at home more with friends and families, they will go out less; watch TV; they will still need to sleep.”

Mr Hansson was appointed last autumn, after Peter Hogsted, his predecessor, was poached by Kingfisher to lead its international business. It is thought that in appointing Mr Hogsted Kingfisher hoped to

take a bit of the Ikea model by driving the “commonality of sourcing [that's buying supplies in bulk on a group level, to those of us without an MBA]“.

In Mr Hansson's words, “we as a business have our values and what we stand for - that's independent of what country we're operating in”. To those of us unversed in the cult of Ikea, that means cheap - but not cheap and nasty - furniture.

CV

Age: 34

Education: 1995-99 Studied law at University of Gothenburg

Career: 1999 Joined Ikea Denmark as operations manager at Ikea Taastrup, holding various internal operations roles;

2004 Store manager at Ikea Nottingham;

2006 Assistant to Ikea global president Anders Dahlvig and company founder Ingvar Kamprad;

October 2008 Country manager, Ikea UK

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive