Sarine Technologies

[donmihaihai]

One of the main demand for de beers diamond is due to its successful marketing in 1947 that to propose to a girl, a diamond ring is a must. Before 1947, a proposal gift took on many other forms and only 10% of proposals in USA involved a diamond.

De Beers example was a classic marketting of selling snow to snowmen. From 1947, De Beers diamond supply shot up the roof to meet the demand it brilliantly created from marketing. Thus earnings expansion. Take for example in Japan, now almost all brides to be expect a diamond ring, before 1947, the no of brides with diamond rings was nearly 0

Come 2020 and onwards, the slogan is still eteched in every male's mind that a diamond (ring) is still needed. However de beers is no longer the only diamond supplier in town. There are new suppliers called the lab grown diamonds (LGD) who are so similar to natural diamonds that even experts jewllers cant tell the difference (this has been proven). It takes only very skilled professionals or those with microscopes to accurately certify it.

These LGD are now being less expensive and less carbon emissions. Once diamonds can be something that is produced by labs, I wonder what stands out

Have you heard of anyone walking into a shop and ask for De beers diamond or say I am wearing a De beers diamond. Never in my life. How many peoples know about Tiffany,  I bet almost all ladies. The story of De beers was the past but it did create diamond is forever kind of stuffs. Last google, de beers supply like below 30% of all mined diamonds. So I am not sure if De Beers enjoyed the fruits of its creation or brands

Of course skilled professionals can't tell the difference between LGD and mined diamonds.  They have the same properties.

[specuvestor]

De Beers' influence and market share is like Aramco in oil. Nobody ask for Saudi oil when they pump petrol either

Their response / any repositioning will ripple across the industry

I think it will largely depend on the cost of making LGD rather than the price of mined diamond per se ie from extraordinary profit to dwindle down to commodities over time.

As a spectator I'm more curious how De Beers will respond / reposition

[specuvestor]

De Beers' influence and market share is like Aramco in oil. Nobody ask for Saudi oil when they pump petrol either

Their response / any repositioning will ripple across the industry

I think it will largely depend on the cost of making LGD rather than the price of mined diamond per se ie from extraordinary profit to dwindle down to commodities over time.

As a spectator I'm more curious how De Beers will respond / reposition

(Bloomberg) -- De Beers decided to call time on offering lab-grown diamonds for engagement rings even as the man-made alternatives continue to cannibalize demand in one of the company’s most important markets.
After vowing for years that it wouldn’t sell stones created in laboratories, in 2018 De Beers reversed that position and only this year started testing sales of the diamonds in the crucial engagement-ring sector. The diamond industry leader said Wednesday that the trial showed that it wasn’t a sustainable market.
De Beers’ move comes as the kinds of stones that go into the cheaper one- or two-carat solitaire bridal rings popular in the US have experienced far sharper price drops than the rest of the market, with the lower-cost lab-grown competition seen behind the collapse.

De Beers has said the current weakness is a natural downswing in demand after the pandemic, with engagement rings particularly vulnerable. The company concedes that there has been some penetration into the category from synthetic stones, but doesn’t see it as a structural shift.
Lab-grown diamonds — physically identical stones that can be made in matter of weeks in a microwave chamber — have long been seen as an existential threat to the natural mining industry. Proponents say they can offer a cheaper alternative without many of the environmental or social downsides sometimes attached to mined diamonds.
While the price of some natural stones used in lower-quality engagement rings have plummeted in the past year, the fall in lab-grown prices has been even steeper. De Beers has said it expects lab-grown prices to continue to decline as more supply comes into the market
Retailers would need to double the number of lab-grown carats they sell every two years, just to maintain profits, De Beers said.