Jewellers pitch lure of natural diamonds amid lab-grown challenge

With natural diamond prices under pressure, jewellers are looking to attract more buyers and create new occasions for purchases in a market that's still largely untapped.

Bengaluru/Mumbai: Indian jewellers are stepping up their luxury pitch for natural diamonds this festive and wedding season, playing up their rarity and lasting value as cheaper lab-grown stones vie for the same consumer cohort. With natural diamond prices under pressure, jewellers are looking to attract more buyers and create new occasions for purchases in a market that's still largely untapped.

India is the world's second-largest market for natural diamond jewellery after the US, accounting for 12% of global demand, according to De Beers, global diamond mining and jewellery giant.

The diamond market is seeing mounting pressure. De Beers’ average realized rough-diamond price fell 32% to $105 a carat in the first half of 2026, while smaller, lower-quality natural stones remained under pressure from lab-grown diamonds. The miner has also paused production at its Venetia mine in South Africa for two years to cut costs, even as India remains a robust market.

In India, De Beers is trying to expand the occasions for buying natural diamonds, while widening their availability beyond large jewellery chains.

“We took a step back and said, okay, if I want to grow this market, almost create a surround sound, how would I do it?”, Shweta Harit, global senior vice president of De Beers Group and chief executive Forevermark, told Mint.

De Beers is expanding diamond purchases beyond proposals and weddings, targeting occasions such as second piercings, friendship and new life stages. Its ‘Love From Hubby’ campaign features an empty-nester couple, while ‘Love From Dad’ positioned a second piercing as a new occasion for natural diamonds. “Otherwise, you’re really going to be stuck at some point in proposals or maybe weddings,” Harit said.

For the festive and wedding season, De Beers is positioning natural diamonds around legacy and preciousness, including a campaign with Jaipur’s Maharaja Sawai Padmanabh Singh and a Forevermark campaign featuring Princess Diya Kumari. “We really believe that natural stones have aura and power,” Harit said.

The push extends to retail. Forevermark had 10 stores in India by July and plans to reach 20 by the end of 2026 and 100 by 2030. De Beers has also created the Indian Natural Diamond Retailers Association, or INDRA, with the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council to bring smaller jewellers into the category.

Harit said about 60% of India’s jewellery market remains unorganized, with many smaller retailers having generations of experience selling gold but less familiarity with diamonds.

The low penetration leaves room for further growth, Harit said. She estimates around 12% of jewellery pieces in India contain diamonds, compared with about 70% in the US. “Typically, you start with penetration, so you start with that. Then you get into frequency, so you want to buy more often. And then, you price up,” she said.

Titan partnered with designer Rahul Mishra to showcase Tanishq’s latest natural diamond collection, first presented at this year’s Paris Couture Week, with the collection focused on highlighting the rarity and beauty of natural diamonds.

“We were always clear that natural diamonds will have its appeal, especially in a country like India, where preciousness plays a big role," said Ajoy Chawla, managing director of Titan Co. Ltd. "People do expect their jewellery to have a certain value retention. Overall, the store of value is important.”

Tanishq has rolled out diamond experience centres in about 200 stores, where customers can study natural diamonds and understand their difference from lab-grown alternatives. The company is also shifting the conversation towards sparkle and visual appeal.

Titan’s studded jewellery business is showing that the strategy is translating into demand. In its June quarter earnings call on 7 August, Chawla said the product mix was “swinging upwards towards more studded scale” and called it an important driver for the jewellery division. Titan’s studded jewellery grew in the mid-30s in the first quarter of fiscal year 2027 (Q1FY27), and the company said buyer growth in studded jewellery continued to outpace gold jewellery.

The momentum continued into the September quarter, with Titan reporting early-30s growth in studded jewellery in its Q2 update on 6 October, even as the overall jewellery portfolio grew 21%.

Cost appeal

At the same time, Titan is not betting exclusively on natural diamonds. It launched beYon, its lab-grown diamond brand, in December 2025. Senco Gold and Diamonds has Sennes, while Trent has Pome under Westside, giving some of India’s largest organised jewellery and retail groups a presence in both natural and lab-grown diamonds.

Lab-grown diamonds cost roughly one-tenth of a natural diamond of the same size/carat. They, however, do not have any resale value, and jewellers typically do not accept them for resale.

“You get a sense that you're not caught up in the semantics of the 4Cs,” Chawla said, echoing similar marketing efforts by Indriya. “4Cs is such a dry way to describe a diamond. What matters is—what is the brilliance, the light performance, how do you see it come alive in front of you?”

To be sure, the 4Cs refer to the cut, colour, clarity and carat weight, making the global standard for evaluating diamond quality.

The bottom line, Chawla said, is that natural diamonds are one-of-a-kind, unlike each other, and not a commodity. He compared them with Indian heritage goods such as luxurious hand-woven textiles, which are valued for the slight imperfections that handmade work by master craftsmen inevitably leaves behind. In June, Indriya ran a 'Sparkle Like No Other' campaign with brand ambassador Aditi Rao Hydari to promote natural diamonds.

The challenge for the industry is that lab-grown diamonds are rapidly gaining ground. The International Gemological Institute’s consolidated certification revenue from lab-grown diamond jewellery rose 44% year-on-year in April-June, while natural-diamond jewellery certification revenue grew 2%. Lab-grown loose-stone certification revenue rose 25%, compared with 6% for natural loose stones, according to IGI’s investor presentation.

IGI said the lab-grown jewellery segment has seen over 1,000 retail showrooms across India as new players enter the market, while large manufacturers are adding capacity.

Indriya is taking a similar approach, moving beyond the traditional 4Cs in its natural-diamond marketing campaign launched in June this year.

“The context is that the Indian jewellery market is worth ₹800k crores, and in that large market, about less than 10% is currently diamond jewellery. It is a very small segment of the total market at this time,” said Sandeep Kohli, chief executive of Indriya.

“As jewellery progresses more towards a combo of beauty and adornment along with investment and store of value, people will want more jewellery in their drawers. If only less than 10% of Indian customers have diamond jewellery, they will want variety,” Kohli said.

“There is a big market for diamond-based jewellery in India, and there will be growth. There will be people who prefer something more precious, like natural diamonds. And there will be some who may want to go for lab-grown diamonds given their budgets,” he said. “If the diamond business overall is small, the LGDs business is tiny. You have to see where the market settles.”

Indriya is also rolling out diamond-studded versions of most of its designs. Its upcoming Padmika collection, for instance, will be available in both gold and diamond versions.

“Besides polki (uncut diamonds), diamonds have not been part of traditional jewellery. But look at a category like mangalsutra, the share of diamond-based jewellery in that category is higher than the average diamond share of jewellery overall,” said Kohli.

The shift is filtering down to smaller jewellers. “The price correction is making customers more comfortable exploring diamond jewellery across a wider range of occasions and price points,” said Supriya Kataria, founder of Kumari Fine Jewellery, based in Mumbai. Demand is strongest for lightweight, design-led pieces, with some customers trading savings for larger or better-quality stones, she said.

At Zen Diamond India, also headquartered in Mumbai, lower prices are bringing in more first-time buyers and encouraging existing customers to upgrade, said managing director Neil Sonawala. He expects natural diamonds to remain the key sales driver this season.

About the Author

Vaeshnavi reports on the business of consumption from Bengaluru, tracking how India shops, eats, and clicks. As a correspondent with Mint’s consumer economy team, she covers sectors ranging from retail and food and beverage to the rapid rise of quick commerce. She is a 2025 graduate of the Asian College of Journalism’s Bloomberg Business and Finance programme. She joined the Mint newsroom in May 2025 and this is her first stint in journalism. She holds a bachelor's degree in accounting and finance from the University of Madras. Vaeshnavi loves storytelling and breaking down complex jargon and numbers to bring out insightful yet simple-to-understand narratives. She is a Malayali but has spent most of her life living in Chennai. During her school days, she was an avid debater and loved participating in anything that involved holding a mic and standing on stage talking to a room filled with people. A diehard SRK fan, she can be found vibing to Indie music and Bollywood songs in her free time. She is a self-confessed cold coffee addict who won’t let a day pass without one, and is always café-hopping in search of the city’s best brew.