The mining giant has launched its own line of artificial stones, but some fear this move might backfire, and impact the price of real diamonds.
Anglo American’s 85%-owned De Beers may have pulled off a strategic coup by unveiling plans to launch a new brand of synthetic diamonds. These are the stones that are ‘grown’ in a laboratory and against which the diamond giant has long fought a marketing campaign.
In fact, the group spent some $140m in 2017 alone promoting naturally occurring diamonds, which it says truly represent the profound emotions that inspire wedding bands and other anniversary gifts. Now, however, De Beers has performed an about-turn by unveiling its Lightbox range of synthetics.
What could it portend?
According to analysts, this is not really the acknowledgement of diamond synthetics that it appears (although De Beers has a line of synthetic diamonds that is used primarily for industrial purposes). Instead, it’s a clever commercial ploy aimed at better controlling the proliferation of lab grown diamonds by other producers.
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