This is outrageous but not surprising sadly. And what does this even mean (IKEA's statement at the end of the Guardian article)?
"We are now reviewing our routines to safeguard a correct content presentation from a values point-of-view in the different versions of the Ikea catalogue worldwide," it said.
Are they now going to airbrush women out of all their catalogues so it isn't obviously different for SA or just add full covering for women who do make it in to the pictures?
It is disappointing but no surprise. International companies have absolutely no shame about giving in to all the sexist rules in place in SA so they can get their hands on a slice of the business there. If you visit a hotel in SA even if it is run by a major international chain, you will find that most of the leisure facilities are restricted for women, Saudi or otherwise - we almost universally are banned from hotel pools and gyms/health spas, and there are often restrictions on where in the hotel restaurants we can be seated. Occasionally a hotel will put in a (generally inferior) gym/spa for women only but this is actually fairly rare from what I can see on the websites.
Personally, I think it is disgraceful and I think a boycott of international companies which do this would be in order, but I don't think people who know (who tend to be men because of the nature of business in SA) really care very much and most people don't know. I only found out because a colleague of mine mentioned it when he came back from a business trip there.