Sales soared by 300%! Orders are fully booked within 6 months! Artificial diamonds are on fire, and "carat freedom" is coming? Is the price fragrant→
Recently, the global production of rough natural diamonds has continued to decline, and the price of natural diamonds has risen significantly.
According to industry data, the 1-carat diamond index rose 5.6% in February, up 12.9% from the beginning of the year.
Major natural diamond producers such as De Beers raised prices one after another.
In this case, lab-grown diamonds receive more attention from the market.
The so-called cultivated diamonds, also known as man-made diamonds, are real diamonds grown in the laboratory.
How is the consumer market for lab-grown diamonds recently?
The reporter visited a number of cultivated diamond sales stores in Beijing.
The recognition of cultivated diamonds has rapidly increased, and the sales volume of a brand store has tripled
In a cultivated diamond sales store in Wangfujing Commercial Street in Beijing, the reporter saw necklaces, rings and other accessories made of cultivated diamonds.
Spotlights above the store shine brightly on the diamonds through the counter.
It is completely indistinguishable from natural diamonds by visual inspection.
It is the weekend afternoon, and from time to time, customers come into the store and ask about the styles and prices of accessories.
Consumers in Beijing: When choosing a ring, first of all, you should look at what you wear and look good, and then look at the price.
It is also just beginning to look at cultivated diamonds, and it is still in the entry stage.
Consumers in Beijing: It is about the same brightness as a natural diamond. If I were to divide it, I might not be able to distinguish it. It is cost-effective and more cost-effective.
According to industry insiders, natural diamonds are grown at a depth of 200 kilometers below the surface under extreme conditions of high temperature and pressure. They have dazzling light and hard characteristics, but they are expensive.
Lab-grown diamonds have the same physical and chemical properties as natural diamonds, but the price is only about one-third of the price of natural diamonds.
Xu Guoliang is a partner of a cultivated diamond brand. When the reporter came to the store, Xu Guoliang was introducing the technological process of cultivated diamonds to the customers entering the store.
According to Xu Guoliang, in the past few years, most of the consumers who entered the store did not know about cultivated diamonds, and even thought that cultivated diamonds were fake diamonds.
In the past two years, more and more people know and buy cultivated diamonds, and Xu Guoliang and several other partners plan to open more stores.
Xu Guoliang, a partner of a cultivated diamond brand: Because of the price advantage, it can help young people realize the dream of carat.
More people know about lab-grown diamonds and are more receptive to lab-grown diamonds.
According to statistics from consulting firm Bain, the market penetration rate of cultivated diamonds has increased rapidly in recent years.
From 2020 to 2021, the global cultivated drill penetration rate will increase from 5.9% to 8%, and it is expected that the global cultivated drill penetration rate will reach 15.8% by 2025; the Chinese cultivated drill penetration rate will increase from 4% to 6.7% in 2020 to 2021 %, and the penetration rate of cultivated diamonds in China is expected to reach 13.8% by 2025.
A sales person in charge of a cultivated diamond brand told reporters that with the improvement of consumers' awareness of cultivated diamonds and the upgrading of consumption habits, the sales volume of cultivated diamonds in the domestic consumer market, especially in first-tier cities, has grown rapidly.
Li Yang, general manager of a cultivated diamond brand in Greater China: Compared with January and February in the same period last year in 2021, both online sales and offline store sales have experienced very large growth, and some stores have even achieved 300%. growth rate.
Diamond Cultivation Company: Orders are full in the next six months, and the product is in short supply
The reporter learned that in the field of cultivated diamonds, China's production capacity accounts for about 50% of the world's total production capacity of cultivated diamonds, and 80% of the production capacity is located in Henan.
So what about upstream diamond production?
What about the revenue of the listed company?
In Shangqiu, Henan, the reporter came to a company specializing in the production of superhard materials. This company currently mainly produces industrial diamonds and cultivated diamonds.
In the production workshop, the reporter saw a set of six-sided top hydraulic presses in operation. These six-sided top hydraulic presses can simulate the growth environment and crystallization conditions of natural diamonds.
It is understood that the raw material for cultivating diamonds is graphite, which is grown and cultivated in a high temperature and high pressure environment after adding a catalyst.
At this time, the last round of production and cultivation has just ended, and the production workers are inspecting the equipment, and then put in the graphite composite block for the next round of production and cultivation.
Recently, with the increase of downstream orders, the workshop has gradually increased the production capacity of cultivated diamonds.
Zhang Cunsheng, chief engineer of a listed company of cultivated diamonds: The equipment I see now is a six-sided hydraulic press, which can be used to produce industrial diamonds and cultivated diamonds.
The proportion of equipment that cultivates diamonds has increased from 30% last year to more than 60% this year.
The single-machine capacity of cultivated diamonds increased by more than 30% year-on-year.
According to skilled workers, the single-grained diamonds produced by these machines can reach 10-20 carats. The physical and chemical properties are exactly the same as those of natural diamonds. The cultivation cycle only takes about three weeks.
Later, in the company's office, the reporter met Zhou Zhihua, the head of the marketing department who was sorting out recent orders.
He told reporters that the production of enterprise-grown diamonds has been in short supply recently, and the orders for the next 6 months have been signed.
Zhou Zhihua, director of the marketing department of a listed company of cultivated diamonds: All orders for the next 6 months have been signed, and the deposit has been received.
Now it is no longer developing new customers and no longer accepting new orders.
There are still many customers who are looking for us to sign contracts. At present, the sales of cultivated diamonds are seriously in short supply.
Subsequently, the reporter came to a cultivated diamond processing enterprise in Shangqiu City, Henan Province.
The reporter saw here that the skilled workers grade the delivered rough diamonds according to criteria such as clarity and size, and then determine the appropriate cutting shape through manual marking and machine marking. After that, the rough diamonds are cut, polished and cleaned. In the end, I got a sparkling loose diamond.
The general manager of the processing company told reporters that the factory can produce about 100 carats of loose diamonds a day.
This year, the factory will expand its production scale, and plans to recruit about 80 people to join the diamond polishing process in the near future.
Data shows that listed companies related to cultivated diamonds will perform well in 2021.
Power Diamond's net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies in 2021 will increase by 228.17% year-on-year; Yellow River Cyclone is expected to turn losses into profits in 2021, with a net profit of 41 million yuan; Zhongbing Hongjian expects a year-on-year increase of 63.90%-78.47% in net profit attributable to its parent .
Ye Le, chief analyst of CITIC Light Industry Textile and Clothing: The biggest competitive advantage of cultivated diamonds is price. In terms of product quality, cultivated diamonds are not inferior to natural diamonds.
Whether cultivated diamonds can rise in China in the future mainly depends on the promotion of brands, mainly the guidance of consumers' cognition.