What assumptions are you making for demands, a goal for the
fourth quarter, which is the quarter we are now in, is traditionally one of the
best quarters because it has a lot of festivals like The Valley, then take us.
And it is also packed with a lot of wedding locations because there are lots
of us auspicious dates. So you generally expect the demand to
spike in the fourth quarter. It's one of the best quarters last year
particularly was one of the best quote does not see serious.
We have never seen such demand. That's because there was no pent up
demand that came in. We don't expect the same this quarter.
We definitely will see a better demand than the first half.
But it is not going to be as good as it was last year.
What about the impact from the very weak rupee has been touching record lows?
Will that impact demand for gold? Well, actually, if you look at the
prices, they haven't really reacted. In fact, we have seen a higher price in
rupee was stronger. We have seen fifty five thousand rupees.
It is always quoted in 10 grams here. Fifty five thousand rupees.
We have seen the peak during last year, but right now it is still around fifty
thousand, despite rupee weakening against the dollar.
So we haven't seen much of a flow into the gold price because the international
prices also come down. So at the moment, the price is actually
attractive. Attractive, but give us a sense is why
you haven't seen Gold Act as the traditional haven as it has done for
many years before. Would you put that down, too?
Well, it is not like there is some crisis that the people have realized
that they have to rush to gold. You know, if you look at look back,
there have been cases when inflation was just, you know, very high and people did
not have the right investment choices. So they moved to gold right now.
Yes, inflation is a little high, but it is not something which is being
perceived as, you know, something of a crisis here.
So therefore, gold is just seeing a seasonal uptick.
There is no crisis push towards gold at this moment of time.
That's why you don't see that people rushing to buy gold.
You expect that, OK, 5 percent expense inflation.
People will walk up to the gold jewelry stores.
That's not the case now. But I'm talking here some about, you
know, what we're seeing globally in terms of moving this volatility in
markets and assets at the moment, really the moment deflating in price.
That's one aspect of what of the question I was asking you.
And, you know, the other thing I was going to get to is are you seeing gold
lose out to crypto? Well, not at all.
And not in India specifically. And as we have always maintained, there
are several asset classes. It's not like, you know, just because
crypto has come, people have moved out of gold.
If you hold more crypto, actually, you need more gold to balance your portfolio
risk. We haven't seen much of it because last
year we saw 800 ton demand. We will see close to that this year.
So it's actually coming back to the pre core wage levels in terms of the total
demand in tonnage. And if you really translate it in terms
of Indian rupee, because the prices in the last three years have gone up by
nearly 55, 60 percent, the investment in gold has really jumped hugely.
Some even gold has gone digital. What are you seeing in terms of digital
sales for gold? Is it appealing to perhaps the younger
generation? Yes, it is.
Although I must say that the physical in-store experience continues to reign
supreme. You do have lots of fintech initiatives
which have come in India where you can buy gold, you know, using a mobile and
it is stored in a safe, walled independent of the platform.
She does have actually caught the fancy of people.
They have been growing in the last couple of years.
But in the overall scheme, they are still very, very small.
You know, 80 percent as jewelry and know close to another.
And. Now 19 percent will be bots and coins
all in physical form. So I think 800 tons of gold was consumed
in India last year. What's the overall target for this year?
Could it be repeated in your view? Well, the first half, which is a
calendar year, we saw 307 tonnes, and that is the second quarter in
particular, saw a 43 percent jump. But that's on the low base effect
because last year, second quarter was one of the worst affected by Covid.
So still first half of 307 tonnes. We will expect the fourth quarter to be
very good, but not as good as last year, last year.
As I mentioned, it was 345 times. We don't expect that to happen.
So we will see something close to 700, 750 tonnes this year, not the 800 tonnes
that we saw last year.