Welcome back to the Diamond Blog! We've been on a bit of a hiatus recently as we focused on creating our new website for the Sarine Technology Lab, the world's first AI-based automated diamond grading lab. Now, we're getting back to delivering up-to-date news and perspectives from the diamond industry, and we thought we'd re-start with our Spectrum blog, which presents a roundup of the latest interesting trends and tidbits from the world of diamonds. And what a time it is for the industry – there's diamonds at the Oscars, a little bit of big bling, blockchain, and the latest musings on millennials and diamonds. Take a look below!
By Will Martin @Business Insider
According to Nimesh Patel, CFO of DeBeers, it's just not true that millennials aren't buying diamonds. In fact, this article quotes some surprising statistics. Millennials are actually very solid diamond buyers – and they haven't even yet reached 'peak affluency', which means they may turn out to be an excellent diamond buying generation after all.
By Anthony DeMarco @Forbes
What would a post-Oscars press roundup be without the obligatory analysis of jewelry on the red carpet? And this year, diamonds made a star-studded turnout, with amazing multi-carat designs worn by Nicole Kidman, Gal Gadot and many others. When it comes to the Oscars, it seems that carats matter – Kidman is noted to have worn no less than a whopping 84 carats of Harry Winston diamonds.
By Kevin McCoy @USAtoday
Over at USA Today, they're asking the important questions, such as 'who has the biggest diamond?', inspired by last month's find of a flawless 910-carat diamond in southern Africa. The three contenders are Elizabeth Taylor, Beyonce and Melania Trump, whose 25-carat diamond, a 10th anniversary gift from her husband, the current US president, was featured of course in the official White House portrait of the First Lady.
By Thomas Biesheuvel @Bloomberg
More from Nimesh Patel of DeBeers, who says that DeBeers is mining more diamonds this year than any year since the 2008 financial crisis. This bodes well for the industry, as it reflects a growing demand for polished diamonds, though other industry insiders are warning that the market won't be able to sustain a significant increase in diamond supply.
By Jing Daily @South China Morning Post
This article combines two of the hottest topics in the diamond industry – millennials (yes, they're still being talked about) and the Chinese diamond market, which is growing at a steady pace. Chinese millennials account for 68% of diamond sales in China, the highest proportion among any of the world's markets. Interestingly, more Chinese women see diamonds as a symbol of financial independence, rather than a token of marriage.
By TNN @Times of India
Speaking of hot topics in the diamond industry, blockchain is a much-talked-about trend. Lucara Diamonds and DeBeers for instance are both moving towards blockchain technology to help track diamonds through the manufacturing process, in an attempt to improve consumer confidence in diamond authenticity. In this article, you can read about how this hot technology is now being adopted by diamond manufacturers in India too.
We hope you enjoyed this week’s SPECTRUM blog post, be sure to respond in the comments or tweet us @SarineTechltd or follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn.