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In 1948, the diamond company De Beers launched a marketing campaign with the slogan “A diamond lasts forever.” Fifty years later, the company launched another campaign to justify the price of diamonds with the slogan, “Isn't two months' salary a small price to pay for something that lasts forever?”
Now De Beers is drastically cutting its prices to boost sales, and on Alibaba you can buy a diamond manufacturing machine for $200,000.
This is a sign that diamond production is being democratized, reports Ars Technica.
According to diamond expert Paul Zimnisky, sales of lab-grown gems have soared over the past five years, making the price of mined stones less attractive. The lab-grown diamond market was worth $13 billion last year and is expected to reach about $22 billion by 2031.
Ankur Daga, CEO of jewelry company Angara, estimates that half of all engagement rings sold this year will contain lab-grown stones, a significant increase from the two percent in 2018.
“The diamond industry is in trouble,” Daga told CNBC in June.
At the time of writing, natural 1-carat diamonds cost around $4,000, while lab-grown diamonds of the same weight were trading for around $620.
How a machine for producing lab-grown diamonds works
The 44-ton machine uses high pressure high temperature (HPHT) technology to transform a diamond seed, or tiny diamond particle that starts the whole process, into a lab-grown diamond. Alibaba focuses more on business-to-business products, so the machine they have for sale would likely be purchased and used by a company with specialized knowledge.
Related: She started a business with $2,000 in personal savings – and grew sales to over $100 million
Lab-grown diamonds are up to 90% cheaper than natural diamonds and look exactly the same to the human eye. They can only be distinguished using special equipment in a professional gemological laboratory.
In addition, they are not associated with the same environmental and social problems as naturally occurring diamonds, which must be mined under unsafe conditions.
Despite this growth and machines like the one sold through Alibaba, Zimnisky believes naturally occurring diamonds will still have their place in the future.
“The human desire for rare and valuable objects is something that is deeply ingrained in us,” Zimnisky told NPR. “I don't think that's going to suddenly change.”
Related: This family-run Manhattan jewelry store struggled to rebuild after 9/11. Today, the two sisters who run the 46-year-old shop reveal what it takes to persevere.
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