Pandora’s CEO thinks lab-grown diamonds will reign in 10 years
Looking for that special sparkly something? Synthetic diamonds would like a word.
Pandora has posted another shining quarter, with the Danish jeweler bumping its revenue guidance for the second time in 2024. One part of the business that glistened in Q2? Lab-grown diamonds, sales of which rose 88% year-on-year.
Although less than 1% of the company’s overall revenues, CEO Alexander Lacik expects the synthetic stones to play a much bigger part in his brand and the wider industry in the coming years. Speaking to Bloomberg, Lacik said that lab-grown diamonds are “disrupting in a big, big way”, before predicting that they will account for the “vast majority” of diamond sales in 10 years’ time.
Crowned jewels
Many, including Lacik, have pointed to lab-grown diamonds being relatively easier on the planet (and much easier on the wallet) as potential reasons for their rising popularity. Back in Q1, for example, natural diamonds were almost 4x as expensive as lab-grown alternatives, according to data from industry expert Paul Zimnisky. Indeed, while the eco-friendly credentials of the gems have come under more scrutiny in recent years, they’ve caught consumers’ attention.
Data from Google Trends shows that interest in the lab-grown stones reached a peak last December, perhaps as people conducted some hurried research into Christmas gifts. Interest has even consistently outranked the search volume for natural diamonds… a word which was never really needed as a distinguishing descriptor until lab-grown started to take off.
