Gold Price Today News April 10 2026: Global Gold Demand Crossed 5000 Tonnes in 2025 for the First Time Ever — AI Chips and Technology Driving a New Demand Category

The 5,000-Tonne Milestone — What It Means for the Gold Market

The World Gold Council's Full Year 2025 Gold Demand Trends report, published in January 2026, confirmed that total global gold demand including OTC transactions exceeded 5,000 tonnes for the first time in the data series. This is not merely a round-number milestone. It represents the convergence of multiple demand categories reaching simultaneous peaks: central bank buying exceeded 1,000 tonnes for the third consecutive year; ETF inflows returned strongly after three years of outflows, adding 619 tonnes in the first nine months of 2025 alone; bar and coin investment remained elevated at approximately 1,200 tonnes annually; and technology demand held steady at roughly 80 tonnes per quarter. The only major category that fell was jewelry, as record prices — gold set 53 new all-time highs in 2025 — pushed price-sensitive consumers in India and China to reduce volume purchases while maintaining value spending.

The combined value of this demand was equally historic. The full-year 2025 gold demand in dollar terms reached an unprecedented $555 billion — a 45% increase over the previous year — reflecting both the higher volumes and the sharply higher price. To put this number in context: the entire annual gold demand in dollar terms now exceeds the market capitalisation of many large global stock exchanges and represents a significant fraction of the GDP of mid-sized economies. This monetisation of gold at scale is itself a self-reinforcing process: as more institutional capital flows into gold, more financial infrastructure is built around it — ETF products, custody services, trading platforms — which lowers the friction for subsequent investors, expanding the investor base further.

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Gold Jewelry — How the Industry Adapts to Record Prices

One of the most interesting structural developments in the 2025–2026 gold market is how the jewelry industry has responded to prices that were, for much of the period, at or near all-time highs. The WGC's analysis shows that jewelry demand fell to its lowest volume since COVID in 2025 — yet the dollar value of jewelry consumption grew 9% year-over-year to $35 billion in the first quarter alone. This apparent contradiction resolves when you understand how jewelry consumers adapt: they buy lighter pieces. A consumer who would have purchased a 22-carat bracelet weighing 15 grams in 2023 might purchase a 14-carat bracelet weighing 8 grams in 2025 — the same visual effect at roughly half the gold content and cost. The WGC reports that in India, this shift was pronounced: "higher prices prompted a shift toward lower-weight products," with lighter 18K and diamond-set pieces gaining share at the expense of traditional heavy gold sets.

China's jewelry market showed a similar adaptation, with two important differences. First, the popularity of hard pure gold jewellery — lightweight but 999.9-purity pieces — grew substantially in China as consumers prioritised the investment value of the metal over the aesthetic complexity of the design. Second, new VAT regulations introduced in 2025 added some administrative friction to the Chinese jewelry market, but the WGC expects this drag to fade in 2026. The broader outlook for jewelry demand in 2026, according to the WGC's annual report, is "a flat year most likely, representing a potential bottom" for jewelry volumes. Importantly, value spending on gold jewelry remains healthy — consumers are not abandoning gold; they are adapting how they buy it. In value terms, the spending on gold jewelry continues to grow, confirming the absence of demand destruction at a fundamental level.

India's Gold ETF Market — A Fifteen-Fold Rise Since 2020

India's domestic gold ETF market has been one of the most remarkable growth stories in global financial markets over the past six years. The World Gold Council's data shows that Indian gold ETF assets under management have surged to $10.9 billion — a fifteen-and-a-half-fold increase since 2020. This explosive growth reflects several convergent trends: rising disposable incomes in India's middle class; the formalisation of gold investment through regulated ETF products that offer lower transaction costs and better liquidity than physical gold; growing awareness of gold as a portfolio diversifier rather than purely a cultural asset; and the broader SEBI-led expansion of India's mutual fund and ETF ecosystem that has made financial products more accessible to retail investors across the country. India's gold ETF market is growing at a pace that far exceeds the global average, suggesting that Indian investors are in the early stages of a structural allocation shift toward financial gold products that has years of growth potential remaining. The JPMorgan analysis quoted in our recent coverage shows that gold ETFs currently represent only 0.17% of US private financial portfolios — India's percentage is even lower, meaning the runway for growth is enormous in both markets.

2026 Demand Outlook — What the WGC Expects

The World Gold Council's annual outlook for 2026, published in December 2025, projects that gold demand will moderate from 2025's record levels but remain structurally elevated. Central bank buying is expected to stay above pre-2022 averages at approximately 750–900 tonnes for the full year. ETF inflows are projected to continue at 25–75% of 2025's pace, reflecting the completion of the tactical re-accumulation phase by Western investors and the continuing growth of Asian ETF markets. Technology demand should remain stable at approximately 80 tonnes per quarter, barring a significant AI hardware slowdown. Jewelry demand is expected to stabilise at current volumes, representing a floor rather than a further decline. The total demand picture in 2026 — excluding OTC and any extraordinary events — likely comes in between 4,200 and 4,600 tonnes, still historically elevated and more than sufficient to support prices at the $4,500–$5,500 level that JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are forecasting for the year. The Iran war has added a premium to this baseline demand picture — but the baseline alone, driven by structural forces decades in the making, is sufficient to justify the current price level.