Shopping malls in Chinese cities again brim with customers ahead of the Lunar New Year, but this year the crowds are younger and their purchases smaller. A rising gold price, combined with a taste for jewellery that doubles as a talisman, has driven demand for lightweight pieces — 1- to 15-gram charms, micro-beads and zodiac designs — even as many brands quietly raise prices.
Global bullion markets have helped. The World Gold Council recorded 53 all-time daily highs for gold in 2025, and London spot gold is trading substantially above its year-end fix; the article’s snapshot notes a spot price of about $4,970.3 per troy ounce (roughly RMB 1,109 per gram), versus a December 2025 fix near $4,307.95/oz. That sustained climb has encouraged some consumers to treat small gold purchases as a hybrid of fashion and savings.
Younger buyers describe the habit as part ritual, part hedge. Many prize the immediate joy of a wearable piece — often with auspicious motifs tied to the year — while also thinking about long-term value. Retailers have leaned into that psychology, offering promotions on lightweight, design-led items and limited‑edition cultural-IP collections that appeal to “buy for pleasure” sensibilities while promising some metal‑value protection.
But the sector’s recent boom has magnified structural differences between two very different business models. On one side are scale-led incumbents such as Chow Tai Fook (周大福), China Gold (中国黄金) and Chow Sang Sang (周生生). They operate thousands of stores, use franchising to expand quickly and cover the full product range from priced pieces to bullion. On the other are boutique, high‑margin operators like Laopu Gold (老铺黄金) that sell premium “one‑price” artisan gold and cultivate scarcity through a small, mostly direct retail footprint.
The financials tell a divergent story. Reported revenues for six listed firms place Chow Tai Fook at the top (347 billion), followed by China Gold (310.98 billion) and Laopu Gold (123.5 billion); yet Laopu achieves the highest gross margin (38.1%) despite having only 41 stores. Chow Tai Fook’s network of 6,041 outlets dilutes per‑store performance but drives aggregate sales; its single‑store, half‑year average revenue is far below Laopu’s, which by reported figures is the industry’s most productive per location.
Net profits further underline the contrast. Chow Tai Fook and Laopu posted roughly similar absolute profits (about 2.27 billion), while China Gold, despite its large top line, reported thin profitability and a low gross margin (around 4.5%). Boutique pricing allows Laopu to sell pieces at multiples of the international gold price — one example cited a design with a per‑gram retail price roughly double the spot rate — but that premium comes with limits.
Capital markets have priced these models differently. Market capitalisations and share performances show investors rewarding perceived pricing power and growth quality rather than sheer scale. Laopu’s market value approached that of the giant Chow Tai Fook despite the disparity in store count; some mid‑sized players with fashionable design credentials have seen outsized stock gains in the past year even where reported profits are modest.
Yet the sector faces a fundamental tension: gold is both a commodity and a cultural object. Raw material accounts for a large share of cost — industry voices put it above 60% — which constrains sustainable brand mark‑ups. Moreover, secondary‑market recycling and buy‑back pricing anchor resale values to the metal, not to designer premiums, undermining the convertibility of a brand premium into cash. Boutique brands that expand risk diluting their exclusivity, while scale players that try to move upmarket face the challenge of building genuine artisanal differentiation rather than cosmetic repositioning.
For consumers the takeaway is pragmatic: purchases now blend sentiment and small-scale saving, but the long‑term economic case for paying steep brand premiums is unsettled. For investors and managers the question is which firms can sustain pricing power once the gold cycle cools — through authentic craftsmanship, tighter control of distribution, or services that decouple value from spot gold. The Lunar New Year frenzy has illuminated winners and losers, but it has also made clear that growth without pricing power, and glamour without liquidity, are fragile advantages.