Editor’s Note
The enduring allure of diamonds faces a modern challenge. As prices for natural stones continue a significant decline, this article explores the shifting market dynamics and the unexpected global players influencing this iconic industry.
The “forever” love story is becoming increasingly difficult to resonate with consumers.
On January 20, De Beers, the world’s largest diamond producer, once again lowered the price of rough diamonds over 0.75 carats, with an estimated reduction of 10%-15%.
In fact, natural diamond prices have been plummeting continuously since 2022, dropping over 40% from their peak!
And the ones who crashed the diamond prices turned out to be a group of folks from Henan.
Data from the International Diamond Exchange shows that the international diamond price index has fallen from a peak of around 160 in February 2022 to below 100 by the end of 2024, a 40% drop in two years.
A report pointed out that two wedding rings purchased by a woman in Xichang, Sichuan, for 14,000 yuan ten years ago now have a resale value of less than 200 yuan, a depreciation of up to 99%.
High-end, large-carat diamonds had been relatively resilient.
In 2024, the price of a 3-carat diamond was around 200,000 yuan, with better quality ones ranging between 200,000 and 400,000 yuan. For an even higher grade, heart-shaped 3-carat diamonds could exceed 1 million yuan.
Source: CRD
But lab-grown diamond prices can be even lower!
According to Zimnisky data, by the second quarter of 2025, the price of a 3-carat lab-grown diamond had dropped to just 27,000 yuan.
Unpolished diamond roughs produced in Henan factories have seen their prices fall to about 100 yuan per carat.
Diamond giants are also facing increasingly tough times.
By the end of 2024, De Beers had accumulated an unsold diamond inventory worth $2 billion (approximately 14 billion yuan), its largest stockpile since the 2008 financial crisis.
To reduce inventory and ease cash flow pressure, it had to break its previous practice of refusing to lower prices, continuously cutting diamond prices. After a cumulative 25% price reduction in 2024, it lowered prices again in early 2026.
Many people know that diamonds are essentially composed of carbon, crystallized under high temperature and pressure during long-term geological processes. Therefore, in theory, as long as a piece of carbon can be subjected to sufficient pressure and temperature, it can turn into a diamond.
As early as 1954, when the world’s first synthetic diamond was successfully created, China began its own technological research.
After years of technical exploration, the first domestically produced synthetic diamond was finally manufactured in 1963 by the Zhengzhou Sanmo Institute.
The following year, the Zhengzhou Sanmo Institute developed a six-anvil press with independent intellectual property rights. Unlike the two-anvil presses used internationally at the time, the six-anvil press was over 10 times more efficient in production and more cost-effective in consumables.
They use the High-Pressure High-Temperature (HPHT) method.
Simply put, graphite (the black carbon in pencil leads) is placed into the six-anvil press. These machines can create internal temperatures of 1300°C-1500°C and extremely high pressure, simulating the environment where natural diamonds take hundreds of millions of years to form underground, shortening this cycle to just a few weeks or even days, stably producing 10-50 carat diamonds!
After decades of technological iteration and market development, Henan’s lab-grown diamond industry has firmly established its position in the international market.
In 2023, China produced over 22 million carats of diamond rough, accounting for over 70% of the global share, with 80% of the production capacity located in Henan. A number of well-known lab-grown diamond enterprises have also emerged, such as Zhongbing Hongjian, Huanghe Whirlwind, Power Diamond, and Yujingangshi.
According to incomplete statistics, the entire Henan province produces about 12 billion carats of industrial-grade synthetic diamond and over 6 million carats of diamond rough annually. Currently, factories in Henan can produce a 3-carat diamond in just seven days. It can be said that most lab-grown diamonds on the international market are almost all “Made in Henan.”
Their physical, chemical, and optical properties are completely identical to natural diamonds. Not only is there no visible difference to the naked eye, but many jewelry stores using simple thermal conductivity testers also cannot distinguish them.
Only professional laboratories using spectrometers, fluorescence imaging, and other high-tech equipment can detect subtle differences like growth lines and trace impurities.
In October 2025, Power Diamond announced at the 15th China Henan International Investment and Trade Fair that it had cultivated a diamond rough weighing 156.47 carats using the HPHT method.
After authoritative appraisal by the International Gemological Institute, this diamond broke the record of 150.42 carats set by Meylor Global in 2022, becoming the world’s largest known lab-grown diamond!
One can imagine how severely natural diamond prices have crashed.
Many domestic diamond brands are also in trouble.
Take DR Diamond Ring for example. Its engagement rings have a special rule: a man can only customize one ring in his lifetime using his ID card. The subtext is that buying a DR ring signifies the one true love.
Relying on this “true love” marketing, DR stood out among many brands and even went public.
In 2021, DR’s parent company, Di’ah Co., Ltd., listed on the ChiNext board. Its stock price rose 41% on the first day, with a total market capitalization reaching 66 billion yuan.
But not long after, the stock price began to fall continuously. As of today’s close, its stock price was 31.6 yuan per share, with a market cap of 12.67 billion yuan, an 80% drop from its listing.
In the year of its IPO, Di’ah’s revenue was about 4.6 billion yuan, with a net profit of about 1.3 billion yuan, a historical high. By 2024, revenue had dropped to only about 1.5 billion yuan, and net profit fell to 53.03 million yuan.
Calculated, revenue decreased by about 67% in three years, and net profit fell by nearly 96%.
Entering 2025, the situation improved slightly: revenue for the first three quarters was about 1.2 billion yuan, 4% higher than the previous year; net profit exceeded 100 million yuan, a surge of 408%.
It was found that Di’ah has been adjusting its product structure in recent years, shifting towards gold jewelry. In 2024, the company’s diamond procurement volume was halved compared to 2022.
Besides Di’ah, there’s also the once-popular IDo Jewelry. Its parent company, Hengxin Xili, attempted to list at least 7 times, even trying a backdoor listing, but all failed. In January 2023, Hengxin Xili was applied for bankruptcy reorganization.
In the coming years, if diamond companies do not transform or find a new narrative, they will likely continue to decline.
Meanwhile, gold next door has been rising continuously. In 2025, the international gold price rose about 70% within the year, marking the largest annual increase since the 1979 oil crisis.
Times have changed. The “forever” love story is becoming increasingly difficult to resonate with consumers, and it cannot compete with the sense of security and certainty brought by real gold and silver.
