“For a year or so, the category did experience difficult times before the second wave but jewellery buyers are looking to celebrate life and relationships. We now see platinum as a fast-moving category of choice among people,” said Vaishali Banerjee, MD, Platinum Guild International – India.

In an interaction with DTNext, she outlines the journey of the precious metal, that has been slowly but steadily making inroads in the domestic market. South, she said, happens to be the biggest market after the category, which was launched through branded retail players. Since 2010, three variants – love bands, Evara for women and platinum for men— have been seeing an uptick. “South has been a consistently growing market for more than a decade, posting growth. Nearly 35 per cent of the platinum distribution happens in the tier II locations while the offtake in tier III regions too have picked up to about 5 per cent,” Vaishali said.

Noting that the pandemic had impacted sales, she said platinum has bounced back to become an integral part of the jewellery purchases. It is in co-existence with gold, she sought to point out.

January and February 2019 were good months and interestingly, the volume growth had been ten-fold between 2010-2019. Rings, both for men and women, constituted 40 to 45 per cent of the market. Men’s platinum wear too has been seeing a surge with 30 per cent share, while women’s jewellery for this category accounted for the balance 70 per cent.

While the challenge lay in building loyalty and making jewellery relevant for the consumer, Vaishali said June and July of last year had shown recovery, especially in tier II locations. “Q4 has been extremely positive for all our strategic partners as the first two months of this year were promising enough to feel bullish about platinum,” she said.

The industrial usage of platinum too is strong be it in the pharma or clean air applications, she said, adding the ‘white look’ of the metal has been an attraction point for young men.