In an effort to promote natural diamond jewelry in India, Tanishq, the largest jewelry store in the nation, and De Beers, the world’s largest diamond company, established a strategic alliance on Wednesday. With China’s diamond jewelry market slowing down, India has recently overtaken it to become the second largest in the world. This partnership aims to take advantage of this growth. The US continues to be the biggest market, making up half of the global demand for diamonds. According to experts, India currently accounts for 11% of the world’s demand for diamonds, marginally more than China’s 10% share. Through this collaboration, Tanishq also hopes to increase sales of its diamond jewelry, which now account for 30% of all jewelry sales.
The Tanishq-De Beers collaboration will focus on marketing campaigns, employee training, and consumer education to increase awareness of natural diamonds as opposed to lab-grown diamonds. Moreover, Tanishq will expand on its current utilization of De Beers’ diamond verification technologies by entering into supply agreements with the company and developing testing protocols to guarantee the genuineness and trackability of diamonds.
According to Ajoy Chawla, CEO of Titan’s jewelry division, “the opportunity for diamonds in India is massive, given the low penetration of studded jewellery and the rising per capita incomes in the world’s most populous country.”
In terms of value, diamond-studded jewelry currently makes up around 13% of India’s overall jewelry market. Nonetheless, the industry is growing because younger customers favor stud earrings over conventional gold jewelry. This trend has been further fueled by the emergence of digital-only retailers, as customers look for reasonably priced, stylish diamond jewelry for daily use.
In the diamond jewelry market, organized companies have shown initiative, according to experts. They have partnered with designers, regularly introduced new collections, and improved their production and testing capacities.
Acquisitions have also been important. Tanishq and Kalyan Jewellers, the two biggest jewelry retailers in India, increased their market share by purchasing digital brands like Candere and CaratLane, respectively. Since then, these companies have been introduced into the offline market to establish an omnichannel presence, which has increased sales even more.
Unlisted jewelry retailer Joyalukkas revealed last week that it would expand the number of diamond jewelry counters in its stores and create an online-only jewelry brand by FY26. Additionally, the jeweler stated that during the following four years, it wants to increase sales of diamond jewelry from 19% to 24%.
According to industry estimations, the diamond category will be the main driver of India’s online jewelry market, which is presently valued at approximately $1 billion, and is expected to triple to $3 billion in the coming years.