In an interview quoted by Gem Konnect, CEO of De Beers Bruce Cleaver claimed that wholesale prices for lab-grown diamonds “have fallen by up to 60%” since his company launched the sales of synthetic stones for jewellery through its Lightbox brand last September.
Cleaver added that prices will continue to fall “as improved technology increases the quality and volume of lab-grown diamonds”. He said: “The margins that were out there are not sustainable. I like to compare it to a flat screen TV. The first ones were very expensive and the quality was poor”. He said that synthetics were not driving prices of natural diamonds down, as the two are two “different” products. He added that De Beers plans to increase its marketing budget for natural stones in 2019, which totaled $166 million in 2018.
According to the piece, Lightbox expects to sell 20,000 carats of synthetic diamonds by the end of 2019. In 2020, when De Beers’ own factory in Oregon state goes fully operational, it will produce more than half a million carats of synthetic rough a year.
