Dollars held; demand fell. US shoppers bought 5.6% fewer pieces in 2025 and paid 14% more per piece, so revenue still grew. The real declines sit underneath: unit demand, gold jewelry volume, natural diamond sales, and the store count.
The numbers
| Figure | What it measures | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| −5.6% | Units sold at US specialty jewelers, 2025Revenue rose 5.6% anyway, carried entirely by a 14% rise in spend per item. | 2025 | Tenoris |
| −18% | Global gold jewelry volume, 2025A multi-year low of 1,542 tonnes, while value rose 18% to a record $172 billion. | 2025 | World Gold Council |
| −16% | Gold jewelry units at US specialty retail, 2025The worst unit decline of any category. Revenue still rose 11% on 30% higher prices. | 2025 | Tenoris |
| −10% | Loose natural diamond units at US specialty retail, 2025A fourth consecutive annual decline. Natural's share of specialty sales fell from over 20% to 16%. | 2025 | Tenoris |
| 747 | North American jewelry business closures, 2024Up 14% on 2023. Closures then slowed through 2025: 393 in the first half versus 420 a year earlier. | 2024 | Jewelers Board of Trade, via JCK |
| −6.5% | Signet revenue, fiscal 2025The bellwether's actual decline year, roughly calendar 2024. Fiscal 2026 recovered 1.6% to $6.81 billion. | 2024 | Signet FY2026 10-K |
What actually declined
The 2025 numbers split into three stories. Unit demand genuinely fell, and has been falling for years in natural diamonds. Record gold and diamond-adjacent price inflation masked the fall in dollar terms. And the store base kept shrinking about 3% a year, which the Jewelers Board of Trade attributes mostly to retirements rather than failures.
The dollar-decline year was closer to calendar 2024, when Signet lost 6.5% of revenue. By early 2026 the bellwether was growing again, on the same pattern as the wider market: fewer transactions, bigger tickets.
All jewelry industry figures, across every category, live on the statistics almanac. Our analysis: What record gold is doing to jewelry design · The independent jeweler, by the numbers · Lab-grown diamonds, by the numbers.