Overview
- The World Gold Council's Q2 2026 report, published in late July, shows India’s gold demand fell 6% year‑on‑year to 131.4 tonnes while the rupee value of consumption rose about 50% to Rs 1,98,100 crore.
- Jewellery volumes dropped 15% to 75.1 tonnes as consumers traded down to lighter designs or postponed purchases and shifted 9% more into bars and coins and into domestic gold ETFs (net +4.2 tonnes).
- Higher import duty (raised to roughly 15%) and elevated prices cut India’s imports by about 23% to 98.1 tonnes and pushed recycling down 17%, with industry and WGC sources warning that the policy gap is encouraging grey‑market arbitrage and smuggling reports.
- Global demand was flat at about 1,269 tonnes for Q2 while central banks bought a record 289 tonnes, led by several national banks and including a 200 kg addition by the Reserve Bank of India.
- Markets will watch festival and wedding season demand, US monetary policy, the dollar, oil and Middle East tensions for H2 direction because those factors will determine whether prices correct, duties are eased and formal demand recovers.