From October 20 to 22 along the Huangpu River in Shanghai, the 2026 Sustainable Global Leaders Conference returns once again. Nobel Prize and Turing Award winners will take the stage to discuss the future and trends of technology, and the internet-famous professor who "rescues" people from anxiety and involution—Macfarlane—will hold a live dialogue with Xiang Biao!
Limited seats available, first come first served. Let us join together for the sustainable appointment! [Click to register] The international gold market continues its oscillating pattern, and domestic gold jewelry consumption in the first half of the year showed a structural divergence of "lower volume, higher price." Recently, the international gold market has continued its choppy pattern. London gold repeatedly seesawed within the $4,000 to $4,200 per ounce range, briefly falling below $4,100 per ounce on October 14, touching a low of $4,073 per ounce, the lowest since August; the main domestic Shanghai gold futures contract dipped to 881 yuan per gram during trading on October 15, falling back into the "800s," and several mainstream brands simultaneously lowered the retail per-gram price of pure gold jewelry.
Since the start of this year, against the backdrop of fluctuating international gold prices, the consumer market has seen "lower volume, higher price." The latest "2026 China Gold Jewelry Retail Trend Insights" released by the World Gold Council shows that in the first half of the year, China's gold jewelry sales fell by 30% while consumer spending rose by 5%, producing a volume-price divergence. According to the report's statistics, domestic gold jewelry consumption in the first half of 2026 fell 30% year-on-year to 136 tonnes, the lowest level for first-half domestic gold jewelry consumption since 2006; over the same period, consumer spending instead rose 5% against the trend to 144 billion yuan, the second-highest first-half gold jewelry consumption scale on record.
The direct driver of this divergence is the elevated gold price itself. The World Gold Council pointed out that, faced with gold prices persisting at historic highs, Chinese consumers no longer buy heavy pure gold jewelry as they did in the past, but instead turn to lighter-weight, more fashion-forward hard pure gold products, or use old jewelry for "trade-in" exchanges to adapt to the high-cost environment. At the same time, some consumers with investment purposes have shifted their attention to lower-premium gold bars and gold coins—first-half domestic gold bar and gold coin consumption reached 339.34 tonnes, up 28.42% year-on-year, forming a sharp contrast with the contraction in gold jewelry consumption.
The gold jewelry market has undergone structural changes, and many retailers have scaled back their businesses. In the first half of this year, three leading brands—Chow Tai Seng, Lao Feng Xiang, and Chow Sang Sang—together posted net closures of more than 1,000 stores. In the World Gold Council's survey, 45% of surveyed retailers said they planned to subsequently reduce gold product inventory, marking the third consecutive year in which the share planning to destock exceeded those planning to restock. However, the council also noted that the gap between the "maintain inventory" and "destock" groups is relatively small, and the current signal is closer to adjustment than retreat; more than 60% of retailers believe that a large number of consumers are merely postponing purchases, and demand is expected to partially return once price expectations adjust into place.
Looking ahead to gold jewelry consumption in the Chinese market, the World Gold Council believes that the divergence between China's gold jewelry sales volume and spending reflects a mismatch in the timing of demand. At the same time, the positioning of gold jewelry in China's consumer culture is undergoing a structural shift, moving from a ceremonial attribute to a vehicle for self-expression. Compared with a single gold price cycle fluctuation, this change has a more profound impact on the industry's long-term development trajectory; it reshapes the consumer base, purchase motivations, and determines the underlying logic that will support demand once the turning point of this cycle arrives.
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