Seventy percent old gold: India's counter learns to recycle
The World Gold Council's July update shows imports down 42% in June to $1.97 billion, the lowest since June 2025, while some retailers report old-gold exchanges at up to 70% of jewelry sales and April-June revenue up 30-60%.
By The Bullion Desk
What changed
The most striking number in the World Gold Council's July update on India is not a price. It is a proportion: at some retailers, old-gold exchanges now make up as much as 70% of jewelry sales.
What it means
- India is often described as the world's price-taker in gold. This summer it looks more like a closed loop, selling itself its own metal at a narrowing discount.
- For the global market the message is subtle but real: when the world's second-largest consumer meets a rally with recycled supply rather than fresh imports, the marginal ounce has to find its buyer somewhere else.
Key figures
| OLD-GOLD SHARE OF SALES | 70% |
|---|---|
| JUNE IMPORTS, $1.97B | −42% |
| LOWEST SINCE JUN 2025 | 16–22t |
| APR–JUN JEWELRY REVENUE | +30–60% |
Source: WGC India update, July 17
The cupboard is the mine
The customer walks in with her grandmother's bangles and walks out with a new set, and the till records a sale that required almost no new metal at all.
Kavita Chacko's market report, published July 17, describes a market that has responded to four-thousand-dollar gold not by leaving the counter but by feeding it from the household vault.
Where the rupee went · June flows, billions of rupees
Source: WGC India update, July 17
A correction that felt like a rally
The price backdrop explains the behavior. International gold fell more than 11% in June to around $4,000 an ounce before stabilizing in July, and domestic prices declined roughly 10% to near 141,000 rupees per ten grams.
The year-to-date split is stranger: international prices are down 7% in 2026, but Indian domestic prices have gained 6%, propped up by a May import-duty increase and a softer rupee.
Indian households, in other words, have watched local gold get more expensive even through a global correction, and the rational response has been to monetize the metal already in the cupboard.
Demand did not disappear; it changed shape. Retailers reported April-June revenue growth of 30-60% year over year as the June price dip pulled buyers in. Gold ETFs took in 34.4 billion rupees in June, the strongest month since February, and digital gold purchases reached a three-month high of 25.5 billion rupees in transaction value.
Bars and coins, the classic price-chasing trade, cooled as softer prices made the momentum case harder to tell.
| Figure | |
|---|---|
| Gold Etf Inflows, Best Since Feb | ₹34.4B |
| Digital Gold, 3-Month High | ₹25.5B |
Bars and coins cooled as the June dip took the momentum case away Investment demand moved to paper and pixels. Carat Capital graphics desk.
The loop closes
The recycling wave shows up in the trade accounts. Gold imports fell 42% month over month to $1.97 billion in June, the lowest reading since June 2025, with estimated volumes of just 16-22 tonnes.
With scrap supplying the counters, the domestic discount to international prices narrowed from a peak of $150 an ounce in May to about $40 by mid-July. A market that once imported its demand is, for now, circulating it.
The story so far
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Method
Bars and coins cooled as the June dip took the momentum case away