Platinum demand in India likely to continue this year at pace seen past 10 years 

The demand for platinum, particularly for jewellery, in 2023 is likely to continue at the same pace witnessed in the last decade, Platinum Guild International (PGI) - India Managing Director Vaishali Banerjee has said.

Platinum has witnessed a 20-25 per cent growth annually over the last decade, barring 2020 due to the Covid pandemic. The PGI is a marketing organisation founded in 1975 to develop the global platinum jewellery market. 

“2023 also looks quite positive for a strong growth in the overall category. I think this is what we are getting a sense of,” she told businessline in an online interview. 

Marking milestones

“Platinum’s growth in the last decade, up to 10 times, has been driven by consumers choosing it to mark important milestones in their lives, as a symbol of something precious, valuable, and timeless. This trend is likely to continue (in 2023),” the PGI-India chief said. 

Vaishali Banerjee, Managing Director, Platinum Guild International (PGI) - India

Banerjee’s confidence stems from the 22 per cent growth in platinum during the last quarter of 2022.  In 2022, a quarter-on-quarter growth was witnessed, though six weeks were lost due to Omicron. 

“The April-June quarter in 2022 was fantastic with demand during Akshaya Tritiya back to pre-Covid levels. We had the summer wedding season back to pre-Covid levels. Growth was really strong in the July-September quarter. So we have seen growth quarter-on-quarter in 2022 including the fourth quarter,” she said. 

Young demography

The demand for platinum jewellery in India has been consistently strong, reflecting positive consumer sentiment across the country. 

With India’s demography turning young, the significance of jewellery has changed. 

“Jewellery will always be a store of value... But they don’t buy it only for investment. They buy to wear. They buy it because it means something,” she said.

The current young generation has expectations in terms of quality, design and service from the retail stores, which have become more organised than  what they were in the 2000s. 

Branded jewellers are responding to the younger generation’s demand and PGI has taken this into account when it looked at India as a development market. 

 “So it was a minimum 95 per cent  jewellery. It was with the quality assurance programme, we came with a card so that there is traceability,” said the chief of PGI-India, which was launched in 2000 to transform India’s “mature” jewellery market.

In addition, PGI entered into strategic partnership with retail outlets, which are now contributing significantly to the precious metal’s growth. They accounted for 61 per cent of platinum sales in 2022. 

From 16 retail stores in 2022, platinum is now sold in over 1,800 retail outlets across the country and 16 manufacturers are providing unique design jewellery designs. PGI has forged strategic partnerships with 658 leading retailers manning these outlets across 330-plus cities. Besides the metros, the cities include Coimbatore, Madurai, Vijayawada, Surat, Rajkot, Baroda, Kochi, Lucknow, Patna, Bhubaneswar, Kanpur and Indore, among others.

Nielsen study

Stating that PGI is focusing on young consumers, she said those aged between 20 and 40 years are its core audience. “Platinum is very strong in that age profile,” she said.

A Nielsen IQ category Brand Health Study 2022 across 15 markets revealed that 89 per cent of young, affluent and urban women consider platinum for their next purchase of precious jewellery. 

According to PGI, platinum has captured 15 per cent of precious metals jewellery ‘‘acquisitions” through young affluent consumers in the top 20 markets within a relative short span of time. 

The demand in the age group is across regions, including tier-2 and -3 cities. “Platinum is firmly established with this age group with a high affinity in the metros,” Banerjee said. 

Co-existing with gold

PGI-India data show that tier 1 cities account for 60 per cent demand, tier-2 cities 35 per cent and tier-3 cities 5 per cent. One of the reasons for the increasing demand is that the organisation does “quantitative research every single year” to understand consumers’ choice. This has enabled PGI to bring international design trends. 

“We have matched it to the Indian design trends and created a range of jewellery. So this entire design language that we have for platinum jewellery is one of the key reasons to buy platinum,” she said.  

Asked if platinum is eating into gold consumption, Banerjee said both precious metals were co-existing. “I think there are reasons to buy gold and there are reasons to buy platinum. Sure, when prices go up and there is a price advantage, there will be some kind of fillip,” she said. 

‘Heart of emotions’

But the reasons for buying these precious metals are different as well as the jewellery. The occasions of purchases are also different besides the reasons, Banerjee said. 

Though jewellery could lose out to smartphones these days and competition for precious metals is from these categories such as electronics. “But for your wedding anniversary you don’t buy electronics but jewellery, which is the heart of emotions,” the PGI managing director said. 

On helping Indian artisans come up with class designs, she said artisans go through “design briefs” to understand what and how to design. Experts are roped in to help in manufacturing the best quality. 

PGI has trained about 21,000 retail staff in 2022 on selling platinum and how to pitch it with buyers. “We work with the retailers to ensure that there is an experience zone  in all the stores, no matter what size. At regular intervals, we share all the insights with our partners, whether it is consumer learning or business insights,” Banerjee said.

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