The low platinum price incentivised manufacturers and retailers to stock and sell platinum, leading to an overall growth of 5.4% in the US last year, Platinum Guild International said last week, with lower-based retail sales in India soaring 11.4%.
In its Platinum Jewellery Business Review, the guild reveals the consumer retail sales data of platinum jewellery in 2016 and projections for 2017 in the key markets of China, India, Japan and the US.
In Japan, modest increases in favour of platinum jewellery led to an overall growth of 2%, but, in China, the overall economic slowdown hit the entire jewellery industry, resulting in a 8.3% demand decline.
Platinum jewellery is the second-largest consumer of platinum in the world after the autocatalyst market.
Jewellery, as a category, faced a challenging year in 2016, throughout all markets, which was driven by structural, and in part cyclical, trends.
Gold was the most severely impacted by these conditions, while platinum’s response was more nuanced, ranging from continued contraction in China, moderate to strong growth in Japan and the US to very strong growth in India.
“Platinum’s relative strength in challenging market conditions is rooted in the unique space that platinum occupies in the jewellery category, bought more for its emotional meaning and less for wealth preservation and transference,” said Huw Daniel, CEO of the Platinum Guild International, which is funded by South Africa’s platinum mining industry.