De Beers U-turn on lab-grown diamonds divides industry

Since the announcement in May that De Beers, one of the world's largest diamond mining companies, would be entering the lab-grown diamond market with a brand called Lightbox Jewelry, the industry has been reflecting on the potential impact on both synthetic diamonds and the real thing With Lightbox launching an ecommerce site this month in time for the holiday season, and further plans for retail partnerships, the industry is waiting to see whether the De Beers group's marketing might has succeeded in creating a concept that speaks to the consumer as powerfully as its 1947 slogan, "A Diamond is Forever" As industry analyst Edahn Golan walked the aisles of the JCK fair, he was struck by the reaction of retailers, who just a year earlier had been dismissive of lab-grown diamonds.

The De Beers group's move is a wager, says Mr Golan, on educating a confused consumer about the product and redefining it as something distinct from, and less valuable than, mined diamonds By offering uncertified synthetic diamonds at $800 a carat rather than pegging them to the price of natural diamonds, as lab-grown stones have been thus far, De Beers is putting them firmly in the category of fashion fine jewellery and away from the bridal category Mr Zimnisky expects prices for lab-grown stones to fall, in line with other developing technologies such as mobile phones and flatscreen TVs.

"This technology is progressing very rapidly, which is resulting in more larger, higher-quality lab-created diamonds at lower production costs," he says "In early 2013, the largest gem-quality lab-created diamond was only 1.3 carats Five years later there are 10-plus carat polished gem-quality lab-created diamonds out there". Source