Valentine’s Day is fast approaching. Inside -socks around the world will hide men (and a few women) rings intended to convey their eternal love. Since De Beers, the world’s leading Diamond Company, ingeniously announced that “Diamonds is Forever” in the 1940s, most engagement rings have included a diamond – and an expensive one. The average American will spend $ 5,000 to the group for their proposal. However, many have changed in the past year. The most important development is the rising popularity of laboratory growth diamonds. Identical to their natural alternatives – except for mologists with specialist equipment – now forms about half of the American der market, Martin Rapaport, chairman and founder of Rapaport, a diamond prizes, recades a decade ago of a small fraction. (There is the ominous acronym that the industry uses for ‘Diamond Engagement Ring’.) American Jewelers report that laboratory -growing diamonds now make up more than half of their sales of loose diamonds (that is, those who are not in a ring), an increase of one in ten at the beginning of 2020. to withdraw. This is reflected in price tags. At one leading jeweler, $ 5,000 will spend on a laboratory grown diamond a rock about four times greater if the money is spent on a natural diamond of similar quality. As a result, the parsymonious boyfriend is now facing a tempting proposal: a bigger, nicer diamond; a happier fiancé; and a healthy status symbol to begin with. So there is little surprise that the average size of diamonds purchased in America is on the rise, even if the amount of money spent on engagement rings is declining. The world has entered an era of sparing marriages. So far, the trend has been excellent news for lab -growing diamonds sellers, and it is terrible for those who strive for traditional variety. America, by far the largest buyer of laboratory growth diamonds, has seen that imports of cut natural diamonds are dropping by half between 2022 and 2024, according to Rapaport. De Beers’ turnover fell by a third. Some industry analysts extrapolate from here and provide a future filled with laboratory-grown jewels. And for other types of products it would be correct. With ‘ordinary goods’, the demand for consumers moves into the reversal to prices: If something gets cheaper, people want more of it. For example, if air trip was expensive, few people could afford it. Now you can from London to Madrid Hop for £ 50 ($ 63), many more do it – and the airline business has bled. Since someone who bought one knows, engagement rings are not ordinary. If a (hopefully) one -time purchase to celebrate a significant milestone, the price tag is just as important as the ring itself. A large, glittering rock on the finger of a partner illustrates the strength of the love of the proposer (and perhaps, more accurately, the size of their wallet). Diamonds are choosing a choice because it is rare and as a result is expensive. Diamonds grown by laboratories upset this comparison, as they can both be distinguished more frequently and not from a mined rock. Its availability is not limited by what was formed in the earth’s crust billions years ago, nor by the desire of miners to spend a lot of money to withdraw, but by what sellers find profitable. According to Paul Zimnissky, an analyst of the diamond industry, Paul Zimnissky, a diamond industry analyst, has dropped the prices of the synthetic diamond with wholesale, which means that rocks can now be sold at much lower prices for similar strong profits. And wholesale prices will fall as manufacturing techniques are still refined and competition between manufacturers is increasing. Will lab diamonds become cheap enough to undermine the entire industry? Due to the similarities between synthetic and natural diamonds, the stones at some point can no longer work as a way to indicate love and wealth. Jewelers have so far not passed on all the collapse in wholesale prices to consumers, and prefer to increase the profit. Indeed, Mr. Zimnistky reckons that retail margins have climbed up to almost 90% on laboratory -grown diamonds for three carat rocks, 30% five years ago. The margins on exploited stones are still about 30%. Rock bottom, but this dynamic seems unlikely to last. In the first place, the prices of the synthetic diamond of the wholesale may not have mastered: “I can see that $ 10-15 a carat will soon be coming in the future of Lab Diamonds,” Mr Rapaport predicts. In addition, the diamond market is sufficiently competitive that jewelers struggle to retain such fat margins. Some online traders have now pitched healthy stones for only a few hundred dollars. Although a boyfriend likes to take a chance at a $ 4,000, larger lab growth diamond rather than a smaller, natural stone of $ 6,000, he will probably turn up his nose at a $ 300 ring compared to a $ 6,000. No one wants to be a cheap man. Since lab-growing diamonds become a feature of costume jewelry and the true of discounted retailers (such as Pandora, which already sells rings with lab-growing diamonds for only $ 200), their status seems to be crumbling a luxury gift that wants to crumble a Valentine’s Day involvement. It may have even more problems for companies that sell natural diamonds, either in Antwerp and New York or in the High Street. In the midst of growing competition, the price of a ring -sized single carat stone has dropped 37% over the past six years. If, like probably, laboratory growth diamonds lose their signal value, there is a much steeper drop in store prices. To survive, luxury jewelers will have to persuade their customers that a natural diamond is still worth the expenses at a time when buyers with less well heels will buy almost identical stones for their children’s birthdays. Maybe De Beers was wrong. A diamond is not forever. © 2025, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. Of The Economist, published under license. The original content can be found at www.economist.com first published: 10 Apr 2025, 09:23 IST
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