Lab-grown diamonds now make up half of India's diamond exports, impacting natural diamond sales and overall export revenues
The lab-grown diamonds have been eating into the market of natural diamonds with the former now accounting for half of the export of the stones in volume terms. The replacement of the pricey natural diamonds by lab-grown also has brought down the overall export revenues.
“In carat terms, lab-grown now accounts for 50 per cent of the exports against 10 per cent five years back. In the US, there is a clear customer segmentation for lab-grown and natural diamonds. While the middle and upper middle class as well as youngsters buy lab-grown for adornment purposes, rich and those interested in stones for investment purposes, prefer natural diamonds,” said Vipul Shah, past chairman, GJEPC.
The export numbers clearly show this shift towards lab-grown diamonds. In FY19, 303 lakh carats of natural diamonds valued $23,817 million were exported. This came down to 189 lakh carats valued at $15,966 million in FY24. There has been a drop of 38 per cent in terms of carats and 33 per cent in export revenues.
Meanwhile, lab-grown diamonds, despite the price being 60 to 85 per cent lower than natural diamonds, saw export revenues going up from $224 million in FY19 to $1402 million by FY24 – a growth of 525 per cent in five years.
Meanwhile, De Beers Group has launched a DiamondProof device in select retail stores across the US. This technology helps consumers get quick and reliable identification of natural diamonds, distinguishing them from laboratory-grown diamonds (LGDs) and diamond simulants. The device can screen both loose diamonds and those set in jewellery, delivering results within seconds.
“The certification of natural and lab-grown diamonds is efficient in markets like the US. However, in India we are still in the process of bringing in transparency,” said Shah.
