With gold at about ₹1.46 lakh per 10 grams, you’d expect jewellery sales to stall. Titan’s results show shoppers simply changed what they bought.
Walk into a Tanishq store this week and the price boards make for uncomfortable reading. Gold is at about ₹1.46 lakh per 10 grams on the eve of Dhanteras, up 5% in five days alone.
By rights, that should be bad news for India’s biggest jeweller. Titan’s results say otherwise.
Titan reported consolidated net profit of ₹2,393 crore for the September quarter, more than double the ₹1,120 crore of a year earlier. That figure includes a one-time gain of ₹671 crore from revaluing a financial liability. Excluding it, profit rose 54% to ₹1,722 crore. Revenue from operations rose 23.5% to ₹20,337 crore.
Even on the underlying basis, Titan beat expectations comfortably. The analyst consensus compiled by LSEG was ₹1,473 crore, so core profit came in about 17% higher.
The diamond sales
The jewellery business grew 24% to ₹17,495 crore, excluding bullion and digital gold, with India jewellery up 21% to ₹16,343 crore. Buried in the release is the detail that explains the beat: studded jewellery, pieces set with diamonds and other stones, grew at a rate in the early thirties. Titan credited its Festival of Diamonds campaign and other brand promotions.
Here’s why that matters so much. When you buy a plain gold chain, most of what you pay is the value of the gold itself, and the jeweller’s margin is thin. A diamond pendant is different: the design, the stones and the craftsmanship carry much richer margins. Every customer who switches from plain gold to studded lifts Titan’s profit faster than its sales.
High gold prices push people towards that switch. A studded piece uses less gold by weight, so a customer can buy something that looks substantial without paying for 20 grams of metal. Titan’s marketing leaned into exactly that.
Watches grew 27% and eyecare 28%. Abroad, Tanishq did well in North America and showed encouraging growth in the Gulf.
The best part
The management said demand held up well through most of the quarter, despite a strong base from last year and the festive calendar moving into the December quarter.
That last point is important. Dhanteras and Diwali fall in November this year, so the biggest shopping days of the year haven’t been counted yet. Titan delivered this quarter without them.
The board also approved raising up to ₹2,500 crore. Jewellers need deep pockets to carry gold inventory, especially at these prices.
Titan shares had already risen 4.2% to ₹4,754 on Wednesday ahead of the numbers, and are up more than 17% this year. The stock historically doesn’t move much after results, staying within 3% in nine of the last 12 quarters. A beat this large may test that pattern.
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