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Pandora's Platinum Pivot — Lower Silver Cost, Higher Holiday Risk
Pandora pivots from silver to platinum plating, locking in lower metal costs. The holiday season will decide if shoppers accept the switch, with the U.S. as the key market.
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Pandora (PNDORA) told investors it will keep replacing silver in its jewelry, even though the metal's price has dropped sharply from its record. That surprised some market watchers. When a material gets cheaper, most companies take the cost savings and move on. Pandora is doing the opposite.
CEO Berta de Pablos-Barbier wants to stop letting one metal decide how the business performs. Silver made up the bulk of Pandora's products, and wild price swings kept dragging its results and its share price around. So her management team is building a plan that holds up whether silver rises or falls.
The plan, paired with a strong second-quarter report, pushed the stock sharply higher this week. The real test comes during the holiday season. If shoppers do not warm to the new platinum-plated pieces, Pandora could be stuck with unsold inventory.
The mechanism: platinum plating and price locks
Silver used to be the metal that determined the results of a Pandora quarter. It sat in most products, so every price spike affected profit margins. That became a problem. Silver climbed past $120 an ounce in January before dropping back toward $65, CNBC reported. Pandora's stock moved with it.
de Pablos-Barbier told Reuters the company has to separate its performance and share value from the commodity, adding that Pandora is a jewelry brand, not a silver trader.
The fix is platinum plating. Pandora will move at least 50% of its relevant silver assortment to platinum-plated designs by 2027, and cut silver's share of its lineup toward 20% over time. Platinum costs far more per ounce than silver, Pandora uses only a thin plated layer, which keeps the finished product affordable.
Pandora launched platinum-plated bracelets in stores across Northern Europe and online, with a wider global launch planned for the second half of 2026, National Jeweler reported.
The company did not stop at the product switch. It also locked in the price on nearly all of its remaining 2027 silver needs. Pandora has now secured contracts covering 90% to 100% of its 2027 silver supply at about $65 an ounce, Investing.com noted. Its prior planning assumed roughly $82 an ounce. That lower locked-in price adds about 200 basis points to Pandora's earlier 2027 margin assumptions.