In 2008, the US jewelry market increased by 0.4% (Source: BEA), which is much below the 25 year average, flashing the difficult economic environment. There was an indicated contrast between total jewelry market growth and the behavior of the specialty jewelry sector, which descended by 4.7% (US Census Bureau). For the first three quarters of the year, the two sectors performed altogether in line. But, provisional figures indicate that the specialty sector under-performed extremely at the time of fourth quarter. Therefore, the specialty sector observed a tentative decline in market share to 44.6% in 2008 from 47.7% in 2007. This decline is observed in parts of the jewelry sector in which there is no direct competition.

According to recently adjusted government data, 2008 U.S. jewelry sales were $65.8 billion, rise of just 0.4 percent from the previous year.

Depending on the January 2009 overall jewelry sales of $61.6 billion, it seems that there will be a fall in the U.S. jewelry sales in 2009 by only 6.3 percent from 2008’s adjusted jewelry sales of $65.8 billion.

Modified U.S. specialty jewelers’ 2008 sales were $29.2 billion, which had a fall of 4.9 percent from 2007’s sales of $30.7 billion. The government data did not adjust 2007 annual sales, but created a very small adjustment downward (nearly $100 million) for the annual 2008 sales of specialty jewelers (preliminary data showed that 2008 sales were $29.3 billion, fall of 4.7 percent).

According to department of Commerce, U.S. Jewelry sales in 2004 was $56,250, in 2005 it was $58,426, in 2006 it was $62,825, in 2007 it was $65, 494, and in 2008 it was $65,771.