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India’s lab-grown diamond sector is poised to expand as producers consider the country their best opportunity for growth, according to Titan Company’s jewelry chief.
“From the diamond grower’s perspective, [the] US market has been rather sluggish,” said Ajoy Chawla, CEO of the retailer’s jewelry division, on the company’s earnings call last week. “So they have to look elsewhere, and India is possibly the most convenient market, because other markets are not really going anywhere. China is also not going anywhere with LGD [lab-grown diamonds]. So we can expect increased investments in LGD.”
Titan does not offer lab-grown diamonds, and consumers are not yet coming into its stores requesting the product, Chawla added. “But we think there is a growing interest, though it is yet to show up in the numbers per se,” he said.
Much of the demand has come from more established diamond consumers rather than “new entrants, as we were thinking,” the executive noted.
India’s largest jewelry retailer, part of the Tata Group conglomerate, has been cagey for a long time about whether it would adopt synthetics. In July, Amrit Pal Singh, its business head for North America, said the company had “no plans to enter the lab-grown diamond space.” However, it “reserve[s] the right to play the way we want to play, when we want to play,” Chawla said the following month.
While Titan is fully focused on natural diamonds, affordable-fashion retailer Trent, another Tata business, launched lab-grown brand Pome last year.
The earnings call followed Titan’s announcement of its results for the second quarter, which showed growth in revenue and net profit.
Image: Lab-grown diamonds and tweezers. (Shutterstock)
