Securities Times reporter Wu Jiaming and Hu Huaxiong
"Shuibei businessmen have very sensitive tentacles." Manager Wang has been engaged in the jewelry business in Shenzhen Shuibei for many years, from colored treasures to diamonds, he sees the opportunity of cultivating diamonds, "These days, there are more shops in Shuibei doing cultivating diamonds. some".
"Cultivated diamonds" make people realize "diamond freedom"?
Natural diamonds are limited in quantity and extremely expensive, and the emergence of cultivated diamonds seems to make this wish come true.
Not only that, related concept stocks in the secondary market continued to rise, which also attracted widespread attention from the market.
From the point of view of sales, are lab-grown diamonds popular with ordinary consumers?
In this regard, the Securities Times reporter actually visited the Shuibei gold and jewelry gathering area in Luohu District, Shenzhen.
Lab-grown diamonds still need to be popularized
What is a "grown diamond"?
The general definition is a lab-grown diamond whose product properties are almost indistinguishable from natural diamonds, or even better in quality.
There is such a point of view: the formation of natural diamonds takes billions of years, but a diamond grown in the laboratory can only be cultivated in a few weeks, but it cannot be unilaterally understood as fake diamonds.
During Shuibei's visit, several merchants clearly told reporters that cultivated diamonds are also genuine diamonds.
In Shuibei 1st Road and Beili North Road, the reporter found several stores with the signboard of cultivated diamonds, and they can not only wholesale but also retail.
The person in charge of a cultivated diamond shop told reporters that cultivated diamond shops have appeared in Shuibei as early as four or five years ago, but the number was very small at the beginning, and the development has accelerated in the past one or two years.
At this time, the person in charge showed reporters a 1-carat diamond of VVS clarity level, with an 18K gold ring setting, and the retail price was around 10,000 yuan.
"The price of a diamond ring of the same level is only one-sixth to one-eighth of a brand diamond ring, and the selection of loose diamonds here can also be equipped with GIA, NGTC and other appraisal certificates, but the appraisal fee is much higher than that of gold jewelry. , about 500 yuan."
Reporters at the scene can't really tell the difference between cultivated diamonds and natural diamonds with the naked eye.
"In recent years, cultivated diamonds have gradually been accepted by ordinary consumers. Why not buy high-quality diamonds at very low prices?" The reporter saw many diamond recycling shops in Shuibei. The person in charge also told reporters, "At present, there is no recycling business for cultivated diamonds here, but the recycling price of natural diamonds will also be discounted, and some will even be recycled as low as 30%. At present, the upstream manufacturers of the Shenzhen Shuibei cultivated diamond industry chain are all In Henan, most of the midstream processing plants are in India, and some are in China, and Shuibei’s wholesale retailers are the downstream retail ports.”
However, the reporter found that for ordinary consumers, gold jewelry is still the most popular, and the customers of cultivated diamond stores are relatively rare.
"For ordinary consumers, enterprises still need to increase the awareness and popularization of consumers. The consumption of cultivated diamonds needs more popularization, and there is also huge room for improvement." Manager Wang said.
A consumer who is choosing cultivated diamonds told reporters that his impression of cultivated diamonds is that the price is relatively low, but he has little understanding of other aspects.
However, for young consumers, just like hard gold and other gold accessories are very popular, cultivated diamonds are highly cost-effective and fashionable, and they are still easily loved by young people.
On the other hand, the online platforms of cultivated diamonds have "bloomed everywhere", and major e-commerce and social platforms have cultivated diamond online stores.
Searching for "cultivated diamonds" on Tmall, JD.com and other platforms, Xiaobaiguang, Rui Ai, Xiele and other online stores ranked high in sales.
However, in the cultivated diamond market, traditional jewelry companies are still rare.
At the same time, in the middle and late July, the diamond industry has also entered the traditional "vacation season", and the overall diamond price is still in the downward stage.
The performance of related companies has increased significantly
According to statistics released by the Shanghai Diamond Exchange Customs in February this year, the value of diamonds imported through the Shanghai Diamond Exchange in 2021 will be 33.327 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 76.11% and a record high.
According to estimates from Staista, an international statistical agency, man-made diamonds currently account for only 4% of the global diamond market, and are expected to grow to 10% by 2030.
The popularity of cultivated diamonds has also attracted some listed companies to get involved in related businesses, and a number of A-share listed companies have made efforts to cultivate diamond-related businesses.
According to market data, a number of A-share companies, including Power Diamond, Huifeng Diamond, Wald, Sifangda, etc., have cultivated diamond business or plan to get involved in the cultivated diamond business.
The performance growth of related companies is very obvious, and the recent stock price performance is also eye-catching.
According to the semi-annual report disclosed by Power Diamond on the evening of August 10, the company achieved revenue of 448 million yuan in the first half of 2022, a year-on-year increase of 105.14%; net profit attributable to the parent was 239 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 121.39%.
Power Diamonds has been deeply cultivating the cultivated diamond business in recent years.
According to the information disclosed in the Power Diamond announcement, the company's cultivated diamond business revenue in 2021 will further increase significantly, reaching 197 million yuan, accounting for a rapid increase in the company's total revenue to nearly 40%.
Power Diamond recently disclosed the prospectus (registration draft) for the issuance of A-shares to specific objects in 2022. One of the investment projects in this fixed increase investment involves the new production capacity of cultivated diamonds.
The company mentioned in the fundraising prospectus that, according to Bain Consulting’s forecast data, the global cultivated diamond market will increase from 16.7 billion yuan in 2020 to 36.8 billion yuan in 2025, of which my country’s cultivated diamond market will increase from 8.3 billion yuan. to 29.5 billion yuan.
The listed company Wald recently said in an institutional survey that for the positioning of CVD-grown diamonds, the company's early positioning is mainly for consumer-side cultivated diamonds, and the company will accelerate investment and achieve economies of scale.
For future planning, Wald said that it will continue to improve the technical level of cultivated diamonds and implement the product layout of the whole industry chain, including the growth of CVD diamonds (key), the cutting and grinding of CVD diamonds (the introduction of special diamond cutting factories) OEM for the company), brand marketing of diamond jewelry, and supply chain cooperation and control of finished jewelry inlay.
Wald once pointed out in the announcement that in the context of the steady growth of global diamond consumer market demand and the decreasing supply of natural diamonds, the cultivated diamond market has ushered in a new opportunity for rapid rise and will show better growth.
As one of the emerging choices of global diamond consumption, cultivated diamonds have obvious competitive advantages in terms of quality, price, environmental protection and technology.
With the continuous improvement of cultivated diamond technology and the change of market consumption concepts and consumption habits, the market attention and market demand of cultivated diamonds have increased significantly, and it has become one of the most important development directions of the synthetic diamond industry.
In addition, the popularity of cultivated diamonds is evident from the performance of the stock prices of related listed companies.
Take Power Diamond as an example. The stock was listed on September 24 last year. After its listing, it was strongly sought after by the market, and its stock price continued to skyrocket.
The reporter's statistics found that the issue price of Power Diamonds was 20.62 yuan per share, and the highest intraday price surged more than 10 times on the first day of listing.
Since then, Power Diamond has continued its strong trend, with its share price rising by more than 50% since the beginning of the year.
At present, the power diamond share price exceeds 200 yuan.
As Power Diamond went ex-rights and ex-dividend due to profit distribution in the second quarter of this year, if the rights are reinstated, the current share price of Power Diamond will actually increase by more than 20 times compared to the issue price.
The recent research point of Shanxi Securities believes that from the current point of view, the cultivated diamond industry is still in a stage of rapid growth. In the short term, Russia's Alrosa has been sanctioned by Europe and the United States, resulting in a gap between natural diamond supply and demand, superimposed on the global inflation environment, and cost-effective cultivated diamonds. The penetration rate is expected to accelerate.
For consumers, higher-quality diamonds can be purchased within a limited budget. In the context of younger consumers and increased awareness of sustainable concepts, the agency believes that the penetration rate of cultivated diamonds is expected to continue to increase.
In addition, Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, believes that compared with jewelry-grade diamonds, cultivated diamonds may have more industrial uses, so the entire market is in a state of very rapid development.