The Diamond Differentiation Challenge

This blog first appeared in the March 16 Pressing Matters Executive Memo. Read the full memo here, Pressing Matters.

Another week, another report highlighting the disruption lab-grown is having on natural diamonds. This time the data comes from jewelry insurance provider BriteCo, whose findings echo trends we’ve seen in reports from Tenoris, The Edge Retail Academy, The Knot and others, even if each arrives at different market share estimates and average price points.

BriteCo found that lab-grown diamonds accounted for 45% of engagement rings in 2024, the latest full year in its dataset. Tenoris has placed the share at just over half, while The Knot’s Real Weddings study suggested as many as 61% of engagement rings among couples surveyed were lab-grown.

The discrepancies are less important than the broader takeaway. All point to the same conclusion: lab-grown diamonds have firmly embedded themselves in the mainstream of the US bridal market.

That reality is not new. However, one of five predictions made by BriteCo cuts to the heart of the challenge now facing the natural diamond trade: the blurring of lab-grown brand differentiation.

“The lab-grown industry has laser-focused on a single message for consumers: lab-grown diamonds are real diamonds and no different from natural diamonds,” the report noted. “Meanwhile, the lab-grown producers have produced lab-grown diamonds in massive quantities, flooding the market and sending prices, including natural diamonds, on a steep decline.”

The report adds that the Gemological Institute of America’s decision to change its grading descriptions for lab-grown diamonds reflects the extent to which the category has become commoditized. At the same time, the quote above underscores the urgent need for clearer differentiation between the two products.

GIA’s move is intended to push that distinction, and De Beers has taken steps in the same direction. Even so, establishing meaningful differentiation remains arguably the single biggest challenge facing the natural diamond industry today.

Read the report here: The Homeowners Insurance Pressure Cooker and How Stand-Alone Jewelry Policies Can Help

Image: Pandora's lab-grown diamond product. (Pandora)