IN 1948diamond company De Beers launched a marketing campaign with the slogan “A diamond is foreverFifty years later, the company was established another campaign justifying the price of diamonds with the slogan “Isn't two months' salary a small price for something that lasts forever?”.
Now, De Beers is aggressively cutting prices to increase sales, and you can buy one diamond production equipment for $200,000 on Alibaba.
It is a sign that diamond production is being democratized, reports Ars Technica.
In the last five years, sales of lab gems have increased and made the price of mined stones less attractive. according to the diamond expert Paul Zimnisky. The market for lab-grown diamonds was $13 billion last year and is expected to reach about $22 billion by 2031.
Ankur Daga, CEO of fine jewelry company Angara, estimated that half of all engagement rings sold this year will feature lab-grown stones, a significant increase from 2% in 2018.
“The diamond industry is in trouble,” Daga told CNBC in June.
As of press time, naturally Diamonds 1 carat costs around $4000 while lab grown diamonds with the same weight they go for about $620.
How a lab-grown diamond machine works
The 44-ton device uses high temperature with high pressure (HPHT) technology to take a diamond seed, or a tiny particle of diamond that starts the whole process, and transform it into a lab-grown diamond. Alibaba focuses more on business to business productsso the car they have for sale is likely to be bought and used by a company with specialist knowledge.
Lab grown diamonds are up to 90% less expensive than natural diamonds and appearance exactly the same thing to the human eye. They can only be distinguished with special equipment in a professional geological laboratory.
They also do not hold the same environmental and social concerns like naturally occurring diamonds, which must be mined under unsafe conditions.
Even with this kind of growth and machines like the one sold through Alibaba, Zimnisky says naturally occurring diamonds will still have a place in the future.
“The human desire for rare and valuable objects runs deep within us.” Zimnisky told NPR. “I don't think that's going to change, all of a sudden.”