Paul Zimnisky forecasts lab-grown diamond jewelry market will almost double by 2025

Longer-term man-made diamond growth expected to be driven by fashion jewelry and use in non-jewelry high-tech applications 

In the five years since larger, higher-quality lab diamond jewelry began hitting the wider consumer market, production technologies have vastly improved, the number of suppliers has greatly multiplied and many retailers have begun to test, and in some cases fully-adopt, the novel product, says Paul Zimnisky, a leading independent diamond industry analyst in a press release on his lab-grown diamond production report. Industry participants have since segmented into more specific business strategies whether it be lowest-cost diamond jewelry, carbon-neutral branded diamonds or non-jewelry “supermaterial” applications.  
Estimated lab-diamond production for use in jewelry has grown from just a few hundred-thousand polished carats per annum as recently as four years ago to almost 3 million polished carats in 2021 worth almost $2 billion, representing an estimated mid-to-high single-digit percentage of the total global polished diamond market. The figure is forecast to grow to almost $4 billion by 2025.  
Down-stream, it appears that many consumers that are choosing a lab-diamond in the place of a natural diamond are doing so because of the notable price differential. Based on a survey of prices, a consumer can buy a better-than-average-quality 2.15-carat lab diamond solitaire for the price of an equivalent 1.00-carat natural.  
In general, the price differential between generic lab-created and natural diamonds has steadily widened in recent years —in some cases expanding from a 10-15% differential just a few years ago to as much as 75%-or-more at present, i.e. the differential being the “discount” of a lab-diamond relative to a natural diamond of similar size and quality.  
While it is likely that some lab-diamond companies will successfully apply branding leverage and other strategies allowing their product to garner a premium to most, especially generic, lab-diamonds, longer-term it is forecasted that a growing amount of lab-diamond jewelry will be marketed with more of a “fashion-jewelry” orientation, i.e. as lower-priced jewelry competing less with higher-priced natural diamond jewelry. 
Looking longer-term, novel and emerging industrial applications for diamond are forecasted to drive the man-made diamond industry’s greatest growth, whether it be in advanced thermal management devices, medical equipment, energy storage or semiconductors —which alone is estimated to be almost a half-trillion-dollar industry. The market size of these applications far exceeds that of jewelry, and the end user is much more likely to be indiscriminate about whether the diamond is manufactured or natural. 
The full report including data tables and charts may be read here.

Vladimir Malakhov, Rough&Polished