Synthetic diamonds against natural. Here’s who will win

The unstoppable spread of synthetic diamonds. It will lower the value of your natural diamonds? According to this analysis … ♦ ︎

Will the spread of synthetic diamonds compromise the value of natural diamonds? Your jewels bought years ago, with stones extracted from the earth, will have less value, since diamonds and synthetic colored gems will be practically indistinguishable from the real ones?
These are legitimate questions, now relaunched by Paul Zimnisky, an independent analyst and consultant for the diamond industry.

Forecasts on diamonds

According to Zimnisky’s idea, in the next few years the sale of synthetic diamonds will multiply. Already now diamonds of better quality are produced even in colors such as pink and blue. Diamond syntetic production for the jewelry market exceeds 1.5 million carats of diamonds a year. And the prices of quality synthetic diamonds sold for jewelry have decreased by 30-40% over the last two years. It’s a the trend set to continue: last year the diamond giant De Beers announced the entry into the market of synthetic diamonds. And estimates indicate that De Beers’ synthetic diamonds can have a 65-80% discount compared to current prices. More: the largest producer of equipment used to manufacture synthetic diamonds has back orders of one year.

The great race

Read these figures well: it is estimated that the investment in the next few years to produce synthetic diamonds will be 1.9 billion dollars. So the laboratory diamond jewelery market is expected to grow 22% each year, up to $ 5.2 billion in 2023, and then rise again to $ 14.9 billion in 2035, with a long-term growth rate around 9%. And this also thanks to the improvement of production technologies, which should further push prices down. Summarizing: in the coming years there will be an invasion of synthetic diamonds, thanks to the reduction in prices, the increase in production and the positive image these stones have. Synthetic diamonds, that is, are seen as friends of the environment (even if to produce them in reality it takes a lot of energy consumption), since you do not have to scour the mountains or dig holes in the earth to get them.

How much do synthetic diamonds weigh

The world jewelery industry, again in the analysis of Paul Zimnisky, is valued at 270 billion dollars. The diamonds created by the laboratory currently represent 2% of the 87 billion market which includes jewels with natural stones. Even in the near future natural diamonds will continue to represent the majority of this market. But the diamond jewels created by the laboratory will increase to 3.4% in 2023 to 4.5% by 2035. Most of the jewels with synthetic diamonds will be sold at a price between 250 and 1000 dollars.

Colored stones

There are not only synthetic diamonds. From years the world of bijoux also uses rubies, sapphires, emeralds, etc. created in the laboratory. Unlike diamonds, these stones are very cheap. When you see jewelry with ruby-colored or sapphire-colored stones sold for a few tens of euros, you can be sure that these are synthetic imitations, even if in the description of the bijou this is not (unfortunately) specified. The current size of this market is estimated at around 40 billion dollars. Compared to synthetic colored gems, the diamonds created by the laboratory represent less than 1%. But, given that the price of diamonds will fall, their diffusion in the fashion bijoux sector will also increase: laboratory diamonds will represent 3% of the fashion jewelery market by 2023 and almost 7% by 2035, with prices under 250 dollars. And this is another reason that could depress the value of your diamonds.

Less nature

Natural diamonds currently represent more than 95% of the diamond jewelery market. But the production of natural diamonds is expected to decline over the next four years. And this also because the diamond mines continue to run out, though there may still be a few deposits not yet discovered. According to another point of view, however, this trend (ie the decrease of natural stones extracted) could add value to natural diamonds, despite the spread of laboratory gems. Also because, according to the analyst, consumers in countries like China and India may not perceive the diamonds created in the laboratory as substitutes for natural ones. In short, marketing will play an important part in convincing those who buy a jewel to choose one type of diamond rather than another. A diamond is forever? Yes, but what kind? Federico Graglia