Pandora, the Danish maker of charm bracelets that turned sentimental baubles into a global business, is quietly rewriting the metal rules of its craft. Faced with a near-vertical rise in silver prices and a fragile consumer backdrop, the company says it will roll out platinum-plated pieces and shift much of its silver assortment to a platinum finish over the next year.
The numbers explain the urgency. Pandora buys more than 300 tons of silver each year; spot silver has more than doubled from about $30 an ounce a year ago to roughly $80 — a jump that has amplified earnings volatility for a brand built on "affordable luxury." Platinum, by contrast, has edged up only modestly (around $2,100 an ounce) in the same period, making a plated solution on an alloy an attractive way to steady costs without hiking retail tags.
"It is very risky for any business to be dependent—so highly—on one commodity price," Pandora's new chief executive, Berta de Pablos-Barbier, told reporters. The plan is not to abandon silver but to reduce reliance on sterling silver by moving at least half of current silver products to platinum plating within a year, the company said in its filing.
A practical fix with a marketing twist
On paper the move is pragmatic: platinum plating over an engineered alloy should resist tarnish and corrosion better than silver, potentially giving customers a more durable everyday piece. Executives emphasize that the alloy beneath the platinum is where cost control happens — the thicker or more exotic the underlayer, the more the price climbs — and Pandora says it has designed the combination to preserve its accessible price points.
That sensitivity to price is crucial. Pandora's most popular silver bracelets start near the $80 mark; the company says a platinum-plated version of the same piece will retail at roughly the same level. For context, Pandora also sells a 14k gold version that retails for thousands, and a gold‑plated take at a few hundred — so there is precedent for tiered pricing within the brand.
Why the timing matters
Silver's surge has been dramatic and sudden, driven by investor flows, macro uncertainty and a flight to tangible assets. For Pandora, which manufactures heavily in Thailand and is expanding production to Vietnam, the effect has been amplified by trade policy: U.S. tariffs on goods from those countries have added roughly 20% to costs for the U.S. market — Pandora's single largest market. Together, rising metal prices and tariffs helped send the stock tumbling; the shares have lost roughly half or more of their value over the past year.
The company has hedged much of its silver exposure for 2026 at lower prices, softening the immediate hit, but the hedges are temporary. Pandora executives argue that by the time those contracts expire the platinum-plated transition should be well under way, protecting margins and offering more predictability. Management now forecasts a 2026 profit margin in the low 20s percentage range and expects organic growth to be flat to slightly negative as consumer sentiment remains weak, especially in the U.S.
What this means for shoppers and investors
Shoppers may notice more platinum-looking pieces in stores that carry the same design language Pandora is known for — charms, bracelets and necklaces — but with a different finish. For consumers who hate polishing silver or who want jewelry that survives beach trips and everyday wear, the durability pitch could land well.
Investors, meanwhile, are watching to see whether diversifying the metals mix actually reduces volatility in earnings per share. Analysts have called Pandora's silver dependence a "pernicious problem": switching to a plated approach and broadening the portfolio into other materials and lab-grown diamonds are both attempts to blunt that exposure and reignite growth.
There are risks. Moving customers up or sideways in material perception is a marketing exercise as much as a manufacturing one: Pandora will need to convince longtime buyers that platinum-plated pieces deliver value comparable to sterling silver at the same sticker price. Execution — from the feel of the plating to inventory management and production at new sites — will determine whether the change calms investors or simply shuffles the same pressures into a different part of the cost structure.
If nothing else, the pivot signals how stretched some retail supply chains have become when a single commodity can reshape a brand's strategy. For a company built on volume and a predictable price ladder, taming metal volatility isn't just accounting housekeeping — it's central to keeping Pandora's promise of accessible keepsakes in a world where the price of a raw metal can flip a business plan overnight.