Gold-price Volatility Mutes Buyer Growth as Titan Posts 42% Sales Jump

Titan Company posted a striking 209.3 billion rupee quarterly jewellery haul, a 42% year-on-year increase that the company called one of its strongest quarterly performances outside the pandemic. The leap in value came even as Chief Financial Officer Ashok Kumar Sonthalia told Bloomberg TV that “sales growth is being driven more by price increases than by volume, with customer growth remaining ‘muted.’” He added, “We would like for it to be balanced,” signaling a wish to see ticket-size gains matched by rising shopper numbers.

The broader market has hardened that picture. The World Gold Council reported jewellery volumes in India fell 24% to 430.5 tons in 2025, underlining why record-high bullion prices have weighed on demand in the world’s second-largest bullion market. Titan’s results reflect the tension: value of sales surged during the wedding and festival season even as consumers pulled back on plain-gold purchases.

Titan has responded by leaning into product and promotional levers. The company is promoting gold exchange programmes and said it has seen a shift toward lower-carat jewellery, while its Tanishq, Mia and Zoya portfolios recorded mid-teens growth in studded jewellery, Reuters reported. Company concall summaries posted on LinkedIn note that overall buyer growth was weak at minus 2% in Q2 FY26, while the studded segment grew around 3% as plain gold jewellery contracted by about 11% in that period.

That move toward studded pieces and investment-grade coins is a double-edged sword. Reuters flagged that investment-grade gold coins “continued their strong run for the quarter” as Indians sought bullion as a store of value; at the same time, coins yield lower profit margins than jewellery and have constrained overall margin growth in recent quarters. LinkedIn concall analysis and company commentary indicate gold exchange schemes and promotional pricing have put slight pressure on margins, even as management sets annualized margin guidance around 11–11.5%.

Outside jewellery, Titan’s watches business remained resilient. Reuters reported the watches division, the company’s second-largest revenue contributor, grew sales by roughly 12%, with the analog segment expanding 17%, adding a counterweight to bullion-driven margin swings.

Regional patterns and ticket-band shifts also emerged in Titan’s concall notes. Same-store jewellery growth improved from 15% in one quarter to 22% in the next, driven by higher average tickets and studded daily-wear demand in top metros under the sub-₹100,000 price band. South and East regions outperformed the national average, while Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns showed faster growth than top metros.

Titan’s quarter crystallizes the industry dilemma: a Rs 209.3 billion jewellery quarter and a 42% jump in sales value, yet a marketplace reshaped by a 24% slide in national volumes, a marginal year-on-year decline in buyer count and a shift toward lower-margin coins and studded daily-wear. With management framing strategy as growth-first, “It would be appropriate to chase growth over margins. And in a ways that has been our enduring strategy”, the company is positioning for absolute profit expansion even as margin recovery will hinge on gold-price stability and whether buyer numbers return to positive territory.