Forevermark Diamond Jewellery, owned by De Beers Group, is betting on retail expansion in India to sustain growth as the natural diamond industry faces a prolonged downturn and rising competition from cheaper lab-grown stones.
India is already De Beers’ second-largest market globally for natural diamond jewellery. The market was valued at ₹49,700 crore in 2024 and is expected to triple to ₹1.5 trillion by 2030, according to the London-based luxury jewellery maker's 2025 India Diamond Acquisition Study.
“If we did not believe in the opportunity, there is no way we would have invested so much in retail in India,” Mallikarjuna Reddy Yarabolu, managing director of Forevermark, told Mint in an interview.
Forevermark opened a store in Bengaluru on Thursday—its ninth in the country—and plans to have around 100 outlets and generate $100 million in revenue over the next four years.
The opportunity in India stands in contrast to the crisis facing De Beers’ core mining business. The company has made one of its biggest rough-diamond price cuts in years as weak demand, excess inventory and the rise of lab-grown stones weigh on the industry. De Beers’ rough-diamond price index fell 20% in 2024 and another 12% in 2025, while its average realised price declined 19% in the first quarter of 2026 to $101 a carat.
The downturn has forced De Beers, the world's largest diamond company, to suspend production at its Venetia mine in South Africa for two years, shortly after completing a $2.2 billion underground expansion. Anglo American, which owns 85% of De Beers, took a $2.3 billion impairment on the business in 2025, following a $2.9 billion write-down the previous year. The mining group is now pursuing a sale of De Beers as part of a broader plan to separate from the diamond business.
Against this backdrop, Forevermark’s retail expansion gives De Beers a way to move closer to consumers in a market where demand for natural diamond jewellery is still growing. The brand entered India in 2011 through partnerships with local jewellers, but began opening its own flagship stores last year as it sought to move beyond being merely a diamond brand and build a full-fledged diamond jewellery business.
The shift followed years of learning from the partner-led model, Yarabolu said. The opportunity, he said, was to offer consumers a more complete jewellery experience.
“The real opportunity is when you really give that experience to the consumer,” Yarabolu said in the interview. “If you really have to graduate them to the next level, you need to have an international jewellery thought process with an Indian heart.”
The move is also aimed at giving Forevermark greater control over the consumer experience. “We do not want the consumer to enter our store only from a purchase perspective. Purchase is an outcome,” Yarabolu said. The brand wants consumers to understand its designs, craftsmanship and the provenance of its diamonds before making a purchase decision.
“We are not a diamond company trying to sell jewellery,” he said. “We are a jewellery company that is using diamonds as a medium.” The distinction is important as Forevermark seeks to build a consumer-facing brand rather than simply act as another channel for De Beers’ diamonds.
The company is betting that changing consumption patterns will continue to drive demand. India’s natural diamond jewellery market has grown at a compounded annual rate of 12% over the past three years, and De Beers expects it to maintain a similar pace through 2030, Yarabolu said.
“People are wanting to experiment and are willing to go away from the traditional ways of buying,” he said.
That shift is important for Forevermark, which is targeting consumers between 22 and 43 years of age through modern, stackable and everyday-wear designs. The market is also moving beyond “locker luxury”: 52% of diamond jewellery is now worn daily, up from 27% in 2014, while 64% of natural diamond jewellery bought outside weddings is self-purchased, according to the De Beers study.
Yarabolu is bullish on southern India, where the company plans to expand across Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kochi, among other markets.
While lab-grown diamonds offer affordability, Yarabolu said natural diamonds continue to appeal to consumers seeking rarity, authenticity and a product that can be held as a legacy.
“Natural diamonds are rarer, more authentic. They are few, and they are billions of years old,” he said. “These are two different categories.”
But lab-grown diamonds are gaining ground in India. The country’s lab-grown diamond jewellery market was valued at about $300 million-$350 million in 2024 and is projected to grow at roughly 15% annually over the next decade, according to Redseer. Investor interest is rising too: nine pure-play Indian lab-grown diamond startups raised $26.4 million in 2025, up from $4.7 million raised by eight startups a year earlier, according to Tracxn data.
The growing funding is helping newer brands build retail networks and expand consumer awareness of lab-grown diamonds, intensifying competition for natural diamond jewellery.
The challenge is particularly acute among younger consumers, who may be less willing to pay a premium for a product that looks similar to a lab-grown alternative.
“The ‘diamonds are forever’ story is currently in a slow decline, if not a rapid decline phase,” said Arvind Singhal, chairman of retail consultancy The Knowledge Company. “You can try to put it into exclusive stores. You can try to set it into jewellery. You can do whatever with it. But unless the price premium is very minimal, consumers will simply choose lab-grown diamonds that offer almost the same appearance at a fraction of the cost.”
The indifference to natural diamonds is more prevalent among younger consumers, who are less concerned about flaunting social status, Singhal said.
“Gen Z is comfortable with the idea that diamonds are no longer that special. To them, lab-grown versus natural is a semantic difference and doesn’t change the beauty of the stone or the emotion behind an engagement ring,” he added.