Don’t expect Asian retail jewelry giant Chow Tai Fook to start selling laboratory-grown diamonds any time soon.
Chinese customers simply don’t want the product, said Kent Wong, managing director of Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group, according to Rapaport News. To them, an authentic diamond has to be natural.
He told Rapaport that “there’s no grey area in China when it comes to man-made diamonds.”
Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook operates a retail network of more than 2,000 points of sale, the majority of which are in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
Lab-grown diamonds have been a topic on the minds of many executives in the industry lately.
De Beers Group announced in May that it would launch a company called Lightbox Jewelry to begin marketing such jewelry. Lightbox lab-grown diamonds were set to become available this month, retailng from $200 for a quarter-carat stone to $800 for a one-carat stone.
And Signet CEO Gina Drosos said earlier this month that selling lab-grown diamonds in the future is a distinct possibility for her company. She told analysts that Signet is “very closely monitoring and assessing the demand for this emerging category.”
Read more at Rapaport News