Platinum Jewelry Sales Continue Their Record Growth

New York—Continued sales growth in the last quarter of 2021 resulted in a record year for platinum, the Platinum Guild International said.

According to PGI’s Platinum Jewellery Business Review Q4 2021, its partners in the U.S. reported their best performance yet last year, with an average year-over-year growth of 30 percent in the fourth quarter.

Almost all platinum product categories rose double-digits in Q4, PGI added.

PGI said year-end sales saw a 15 percent increase in 2021 when compared with 2020, which was already up 3 percent over 2019.

In fact, according to the PGI USA Retail Barometer, sales growth has seen a constant increase since 2014.

PGI said the results made evident the success of its business grant program, designed to boost the growth of the U.S. platinum jewelry market by inspiring manufacturers and retailers to make the metal a focus of their business. 

Grant recipients Helzberg, Memoire, and Kwiat, for example, expanded their business at rates ranging from 40 percent growth to triple-digit growth in Q4, PGI said, as the companies focused their merchandising, marketing, education, and customer experience on the platinum category. 

Several grant recipients also rolled out new exclusive platinum designs in time for holiday shoppers. 

The organization will open its grant program to another round of applications in 2023.

“The PGI grant was a catalyst for our organization to focus our distribution on selling platinum. We now shelf stock, and overnight ship, our bestselling diamond bands in platinum within a range of ring sizes,” said Jacqueline Grande Raffi, senior director of Memoire. 

“Additionally, during a time when our retailers were struggling with staffing shortages, we made it easier and faster for their teams to access information and order through our B2B site … Our platinum sales growth was over 146 percent, far outperforming gold sales … and, more importantly, far outpacing the industry growth during a record-breaking year.”

The strength of platinum sales last year mirrored the performance of the overall jewelry category in the U.S.

According to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures in-store and online retail sales across all forms of payment, the jewelry sector saw year-over-year growth of 60 percent in the U.S. in 2021.

So far for 2022, it said U.S. jewelry retail sales had increased nearly 20 percent year-over-year in January, followed by a 22 percent increase in February, and a 106 percent increase in March when compared with the prior-year period.