Image credit: Lab Grown Diamonds (Facebook)
The Global Diamond Industry 2020 –21 report prepared by Bain & Company noted that chemical vapour deposition technology is gaining share, with India and the US emerging as major production centres.
However, retail prices for synthetic diamonds fell in 2020 while wholesale prices remained stable.
"That led to a margin contraction for traders and jewellery manufacturers," it said.
"We believe additional price drops will make lab-grown diamonds accessible to broader groups of price-sensitive consumers and push them further into the fashion category, where they have growth potential."
Most of the retail lab-grown market is currently concentrated in the US, while China is a distant second.
Meanwhile, Bain & Company said the natural diamond industry is not investing enough in marketing compared to other premium and luxury segments.
"The era of one-size-fits-all marketing is over," it said in the report.
"Developing customised, analytics-based strategies will become a key competitive advantage going forward. To succeed in a post-crisis world, marketers need tools to closely monitor shifting customer sentiments and priorities, leverage data analytics and ramp up personalisation."
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
