With gold prices shooting through the roof, imitation jewellery, for one, seems to be making hay. Pradeep Katyal, CEO, Utsav, an online retail player, confirms to over 150 per cent growth in the jewellery segment in the past one year.

“Though fashion jewellery is a small revenue earner for us, this segment is increasingly drawing our focus,” he says. These fun-to-wear pieces are primarily for the price-conscious. The price points of jewellery that Utsav offers range from Rs 600 to 30,000.

Nikhil Nanda, Co-founder, Aquamaz Jewels, confirms a similar growth. “Our company has grown by 10 per cent in the last three months.” he says.

Even foreign brands such as D&G, Juicy Couture, Guess and Fossil, among others, are entering the Indian market through channels such as multi-level marketing, e-franchising and e-commerce.

“A lot of brands led by Carbon, Gili, D’Damas spawned out to feed this demand at the turn of the millennium but, of late, smaller, boutique brands such as Karigari, Pari have started staking claim,” says Aasheesh Mediratta, Director – (Sales), FashionAndYou, an online shopping destination.

The imitation jewellery market in India is approximately Rs 7,000 crore, the manufacturing base being second only to China. “The annual growth rate of the market is approximately 15 per cent, slated to reach 20 per cent with increased adoption of the category, expansion in product offerings and spiralling gold prices. We expect the market size to reach at least Rs 11,000 crore by 2014,” says Chaitanya Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, Juvalia & You. Juvalia & You, a European jewellery brand, entered the Indian market in February 2012, and has a customer base in Delhi-NCR. It recently started operations in Punjab, Chandigarh and Mumbai.

>heena.k@thehindu.co.in

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