(Reuters) -India's PC Jeweller posted a rise in second-quarter profit on Tuesday, as a steep run-up in gold prices lifted transaction values.

The New Delhi-based jewellery retailer's consolidated net profit grew 17% to 2.1 billion Indian rupees ($23.89 million) in the quarter ended September 30.

Its revenue from operations soared 63% to 8.25 billion rupees.

KEY CONTEXT

Jewellery retailers in India, which is the world's top consumer of gold after China, are keeping pace with soaring gold rates by raising their own price tags.

Spot gold [XAU=] climbed 16.4% in the July-to-September quarter, continuing a bullish run fuelled by investor flight to safe-haven assets amid persistent trade tensions.

The rally has padded the revenue of local jewellers, even as it has capped margin growth, with Indians shifting to more affordable lighter-carat jewellery and investment-grade gold coins, both of which carry a lower profit margin.

Earlier this month, peer Titan Company reported higher domestic sales, also benefiting from the rise in gold prices.

PEER COMPARISON

Valuation (next 12 Estimates (next 12 Analysts' sentiment

months) months)

RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue Profit Mean No. of Stock to Div

growth (%) growth (%) rating* analyst price yield

s target** (%)

Titan Company 63.06 42.23 15.20 27.62 Buy 30 0.90 0.29

Kalyan Jewellers 36.73 23.22 26.47 37.41 Strong 9 0.75 0.29

India Buy

Thangamayil 38.47 23.80 29.32 43.91 Buy 3 1.07 0.4

Jewellery

* The mean of analyst ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell

** The ratio of the stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT

JULY TO SEPTEMBER STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from LSEG

-- $1 = 87.8950 Indian rupees

(Reporting by Ananta Agarwal in Bengaluru and Praveen Paramasivam in Chennai; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair and Shailesh Kuber)