Carat courage and the global diamond fightback

Mbongeni Mguni | Wednesday May 27, 2026 08:55

Tenoris, an independent consultancy and the sole provider of detailed jewellery retail data, has been noting some striking trends in the diamond retail market in the past year. Using sales and purchase activity from 2,500 U.S specialty outlets for its analyses, Tenoris has been seeing that even as natural diamonds soften in terms of overall units sold, the amount consumers are willing to pay per unit is rising.

Consumers are willing to pay more for larger natural diamonds, a fact that underlines the positioning the industry has been seeking as it distinguishes itself from a market teeming with synthetics.

Hopeful numbers

The trend was evident over Valentine’s Day, a holiday associated with emotion and the expression of “true love”.

“Revenue from diamond jewellery, both finished pieces and items set in stores, rose by a mid-single-digit rate, despite another decline in unit sales,” Tenoris researchers said about the market in February. “Consumers simply chose to spend more, with the average transaction value increasing by nearly 19%. “This marks the largest year-on-year rise in average diamond jewellery prices on record, exceeding even the surge seen in the post-COVID market in 2022.”

Tenoris data for 2025 points to something the natural diamond industry has been pursuing from even before the current downturn began in 2023 – bifurcation. The term essentially relates to the splitting of the market into natural diamonds which are positioned as rare, luxury, ethical and “developmental good” heritage items, versus synthetics which are the fashion items.

While the bottoming out of synthetic prices is a well-known trend seen over the years, accompanying this has been an increasing appetite amongst buyers of natural diamonds to accept higher prices for certain stones.

“Diamond jewellery did well in the U.S jewellery market in 2025, with average spending per item soaring more than 10% to $2,739,” Tenoris researchers said in a previous report. “While overall sales rose, key components underperformed. Loose natural diamond sales declined, despite a rise in the average price consumers spent on them.”

Coupled with data from other sources, it would appear natural diamonds, particularly at the top end of the value scale, are plateauing from the three-year slump and finding their way in a structurally upended market.

Locally, diamonds exports in 2025 reached P45.6 billion compared to P35.6 billion in 2024, the year when the current slump hit hardest, and P45.3 billion in 2023.

Anglo American, meanwhile, reported that rough diamond sales in the first quarter totalled 7.7 million carats generating revenue of $648 million, compared to 4.7 million carats over the same period last year, generating $520 million.

Prices realised per carat were down 19 percent over the two periods, affected by the continuing down cycle, but also the impact of having a higher proportion of lower value goods as well as “stock rebalancing actions” a term that possibly includes special auctions to release inventory.

Botswana leads

Minerals and Energy minister, Bogolo Kenewendo, according to remarks she made this week, does not believe the latest trends in the market are happening on their own.

The 38-year-old is at the centre of a global fightback by natural diamonds to reclaim ground lost to synthetics in recent years. This has involved pumping funds into marketing, coalescing around a united, compelling narrative and re-engaging the market, including the elusive Gen Zs.

Analysts have pointed out that Botswana’s positioning in the industry, with its decades-long record of strong mining governance and developmental impact, is key to leading the industry to a rebound against synthetics.

The country has responded by broadening its role as a cutting and polishing centre, partnering for joint exploration programmes even outside the country and also pushing for a greater role in the downstream industry and its politics.

Besides being a founding and influential member of the anti-conflict diamonds group, the Kimberly Process, Botswana last year co-founded the Luanda Accord, alongside several other African diamond producing nations as well as companies and industry bodies, to jointly market natural diamonds.

The joint industry-wide campaign includes funding for marketing under a coordinated narrative highlighting transparency, traceability, the developmental good of diamonds and their enduring luxury positioning.

This week, Botswana was formally admitted into the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB), the official organisation of the international diamond trading sector which promotes the principles of trust, transparency and integrity in the industry. Angola, another diamond producer, was also admitted.

Kenewendo has spent much of her tenure travelling up and down the diamond pipeline, paying particular focus on the retail end, where Botswana is eager to cement its leadership of the industry.

“What we have wanted to see is trust being restored in the industry, confidence and innovation in the industry and strengthened partnerships because we cannot resuscitate or lead the industry in silos,” she said in a fireside chat at the WFDB Summit held in Gaborone. “In the next two to three years, as we are starting to see now, is a clear separation between what a diamond is and what a synthetic is and that consumers are also starting to appreciate that separation. “That’s the reason why somebody would want a natural diamond, the rarity of it, the emotional connection to it, the impact and development story that's attached, so that it really starts to fetch a premium.”

Referencing the famous John F. Kennedy quote, Kenewendo said the time had to come to ask what Botswana can do for diamonds, as opposed to what diamonds have done for Botswana.

Balancing gears

For the country, that also means using diplomacy to bring more African producers in line with the broader vision for the recovery of diamonds. Botswana is celebrating its Diamond Jubilee this year, marking 60 years of diamond leadership which has involved making tough decisions.

For instance, while recovery in the market will be helped by the global marketing efforts, it also comes down to strategic alignment in what producers are pumping out, in order to reduce the glut in the midstream and retail end, and therefore support pricing.

Diamonds sell on both their rarity and uniqueness, factors that have been under pressure from synthetics marketing themselves as “original” and flooding the market. African producers not within the De Beers’ stable have been apparently pumping out stones in a manner unsupportive of the recovery of pricing and which have threatened to cheapen the rarity of the stones and their supporting mystique.

Botswana has been able to secure closer ties to Angola and is reaching further afield. Without speaking about the sensitive balancing required in production, Kenewendo said efforts were being made around industry-wide partnerships.

““We are seeing different calls across the sector and we work a lot closely with Angola, with Namibia as producing countries. “We have had calls with Sierra Leone about how we can help them strengthen issues around responsible mining and ethical sourcing. “We believe that in the downstream, we're starting to see a lot more collaboration with maisons and others,” she said.

Small victories

Some of the victories in the natural diamond industry’s joint efforts, have been understated, but do point towards an inflection point in the structure of the industry going forward.

For instance, Botswana has been working with various governments to ensure that the word 'diamonds' is reserved for natural diamonds and excludes synthetics, a key distinction necessary to support marketing efforts.

India and France have agreed on the distinction, whilst Belgium has agreed that the weight classification of 'grammes' should only be applied to natural diamonds. Botswana made the distinction clear in its own legislation last year.

Meanwhile, the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), the global leader in setting standards for the grading of all gemstones, has agreed that the 'Four Cs' diamond classification of Cut, Colour, Clarity, and Carat should be exclusively reserved for naturals.

The natural diamond industry recently also secured an under-reported, but major victory in the United Kingdom, where the advertising standards watchdog, handed out rulings against synthetics manufacturers who marketed their products as though they were natural diamonds.

Linjer Jewellers and Novita Diamonds had promoted synthetic products without making a clear distinction that these were not mined or natural, thus misleading the public, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled.

In both cases, the Natural Diamond Council (NDC) and the London Diamond Bourse (LDB) laid complaints that led to the rulings. The NDC is a founding member of the Luanda Accord and lead agent for its marketing campaign, while the LDB is a member of the WFDB, underlining the importance of Botswana’s global outreach down the diamond pipeline.

“We considered that whether a diamond was natural or synthetic would be a key consideration for many consumers and was therefore material information,” the Advertising Standards Authority said. “We therefore considered that ads for synthetic diamonds needed to make clear the nature of the product in order to avoid misleading consumers.”

Pains persist

Despite the optimism, the natural diamond industry still has a long way to go to cover the ground it has lost. For one thing, the bifurcation and higher sales per unit seen in the US, could in a way bode poorly for some miners.

“Jwaneng and Orapa traditional produce a high volume of smaller diamonds, which are the category worst affected by the slump and the erosion by synthetics,” a Debswana insider told Mmegi. “The high prices we are seeing for naturals are in the larger stones, but much of the inventory stuck in the pipeline are the smaller stones, where synthetics are now dominating. “Remember that for us, we dig everything up and its only in processing where you may find larger stones, but the costs are already locked in.”

In a year in which fuel costs have skyrocketed, alongside maintenance, electricity and others, the stability of Debswana’s operations is being tested, while full market recovery remains uncertain.

While the global industry strategises for stability and leadership of a restructured market, the individual mines have their own existential battles to fight.

For some producers, the temptation to “produce” their way out of crisis by simply pumping out stones and accepting whatever prices they can get, will increase the longer the slump lasts.

Kenewendo and the partners Botswana has been able to coalesce around a global fightback will be hoping for both patience and good faith.