US Jewelry, Watch Spending Rose 7% Last Year

Washington—Americans spent more than $80 billion on jewelry and watches last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, a 7 percent increase over 2017.

Each year, the BEA, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, releases an index estimating how much consumers spend on various products, from jewelry and watches to items like household goods and appliances, food, or clothing and footwear.

According to the bureau’s figures for 2018, spending on jewelry and watches (both fine and costume) totaled $82.53 billion, up from the $76.9 billion reported in 2017.

Of the 2018 total, $68.58 billion, more than 80 percent of total spending in the category, went to jewelry.

Last year, the BEA revised its data on jewelry and watch sales all the way back to 2008, shaving off billions of sales and, analyst Edahn Golan noted, painting a more accurate picture of the size of the market.

However, the changes didn’t alter the pattern of spending on jewelry and watches over the past 10 years. The year 2016 was still a record year, topped in 2017 when jewelry and watch spending reached nearly $77 billion.

The BEA’s 2018 data dovetails with what National Jeweler found in its analysis of the 2018 State of the Majors, which showed that more than half of the industry’s largest companies reported year-over-year sales gains.