A sales representative shows a piece of gold jewelry at an expo in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province. File photo: VCG

China's gold jewelry sales have grown noticeably recently, with small gold items such as rings weighing about 5 grams proving particularly popular, CCTV News reported on Saturday. This comes as domestic brand gold jewelry prices have fallen in tandem with the decline in international gold prices, with some brands' prices having fallen by nearly 550 yuan ($82.57) per gram from their intra-year highs.

Driven by factors including rising international crude oil prices, intensifying US inflationary pressure and heightened expectations of further Federal Reserve rate hikes, international gold prices fell to a one-year low on October 30. At the latest close, COMEX gold futures dropped 3.63 percent to $3,884.90 per ounce, while London spot gold fell 3.61 percent to $3,875.19 per ounce, according to the report.

"The recent pullback in gold prices is quite pronounced, and I'm a bit tempted. I plan to visit Caibai Jewelry in the next few days to pick out a gold bracelet - nothing too heavy, just a novel style with cultural meaning that I can wear day to day," a white-collar worker surnamed Zhang based in Beijing told the Global Times on Sunday.

"If the price is right, I'll also get a small zodiac pendant for my niece as a symbolic gesture. Overall, I'll take advantage of the price drop to pick out something I like, rather than hoarding blindly," she added.

Li Yang, a senior analyst at Caibai, said in the CCTV report that young people's demand for gold jewelry accounts for about half of total sales, and they favor hard gold, ancient-style craftsmanship, and products with enamel craftsmanship and cultural connotations.

As the year-end wedding season arrives, falling gold prices have spurred demand for wedding-related gold jewelry, with many consumers coming to buy while prices are lower.

According to the report, Cai Xuling, head of a gold jewelry retail store in the Shuibei market, a gold jewelry manufacturing and trading hub in the southern metropolis of Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, said that customers want to buy gold bracelets before she even wakes up, opting for heavier weights, and sales have doubled compared with September.

Lin Li, head of another gold jewelry retail store in the Shuibei market, said that with gold prices coming down in October, overall sales have grown 30 percent to 40 percent compared with September, with most people buying a set of gold jewelry for a wedding.

Beyond wedding gold, zodiac-themed gold jewelry has kicked off early, with goat-themed gold items already launched in a concentrated manner. According to Lin Yinzhu, head of another retail store in Shuibei, in October the sales share of goat zodiac gold jewelry rose rapidly, surpassing the old horse zodiac items to account for half of the store's sales in the related category, winning over a large number of consumers, CCTV reported.

The price correction has released some pent-up demand. This is actually a fairly good time to buy, because the fundamental drivers supporting gold's long-term upward trend remain intact, including factors such as central bank gold purchases and ongoing geopolitical turmoil, Yang Delong, chief economist at Shenzhen-based First Seafront Fund, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Analysts said that China's gold consumption is extending from "important occasions" to "everyday life," with the market shifting from "buying gold" to "buying design emotion."

According to a report released by the World Gold Council, in the first half of 2026, China's gold jewelry consumption rose 5 percent year-on-year to 144 billion yuan, the second-highest first-half figure on record.

The report showed that gold jewelry consumption is shifting from being driven by traditional ceremonial occasions to being emotion-driven. "Self-purchase" driven consumption continues to fuel gold jewelry purchases, and 44 percent of retailers surveyed reported that customers were buying gold jewelry for their own enjoyment. In 2024, self-purchase driven consumption accounted for 27 percent of total gold jewelry purchases, rising to 37 percent in 2025.