In a recent analysis published by trend analytics company Tenoris, industry analyst Edahn Golan analyzes jewelry, diamond and lab-grown diamond sales and trends in the US in July and year to date.
According to Golan, overall jewelry and diamond unit sales fell 5.1% in July, after falling 2.8% in June. The combined value of jewelry and diamond sales fell 10.8% year-on-year in July, “adding to the 8.7% decline in June,” says the analyst. Meanwhile, sales of loose lab-grown diamonds (LGDs) “gained a 50% share of units sold.”
Sales Performance of Jewelry
After analyzing sales performance by product category in July, Golan reveals that
performance by retail price range “was buoyed by the very high-end of the market with items in the volatile over $100,000 price range displaying a 25% increase in units sold and a 34.8% increase in retail sales value.” However, all other price ranges showed declines in both units and value.
As to diamond jewelry sales, these dropped 7.7% in units and 7.3% in retail value in July. Jewelry set with natural diamonds fell 9.9% in units and 9.1%, while the share of LGD-set jewelry sales increased to 6.2% in value (from 3.8% in July 2022). Year-on-year, says Golan, “LGD unit sales rose 51.9% while by value they increased by 31.6%.”
When analyzing sales performance for diamond jewelry by regions in the US, Golan shows that the best performing region is the West, where unit sales were down 1.5% and value was up 3.4%. The worst performing region was the East, where unit sales were down 13.3% and value was down 20.3%.
LGDs Trends
While diamond sales went down “by nearly every parameter,” says Golan, LGD sales “rose by most parameters, except price.” In July, natural and LGDs “reached the 50/50 share of unit sales […].”
Year to date, says Golan, sales of LGDs rose 55.5% by units sold and 20.9% by value, “another sign of the continuous decline in average transaction value […]”.
The trend for the coming year, according to the analyst, “is one of growing LGD sales while natural diamonds remain at a relatively steady supply and demand, by which LGD gains share.” By value, the share of lab-grown diamonds is just 25.2% of diamond sales.
Read the full analysis here.
