The Hindu Business Line : Indian glitter seen continuing in diamond market

CHINA may forge ahead of India in many sectors, but in diamond jewellery India will continue to be ahead of its competitive neighbour. "India will continue to be a leading manufacturer of small diamonds," said Mr Stephen C. Lussier, Worldwide Marketing Director (Sales and Marketing), Diamond Trading Company (DTC).

Unlike India, China has never had a tradition of wearing jewellery, said Mr Lussier, indicating that the Chinese market is relatively new to diamonds.

India's diamond jewellery market will continue to grow at around 40 per cent per annum on growing demand, according to Mr Lussier.

DTC is the sales and marketing arm of the De Beers group in London.

India is the fastest growing market of diamond jewellery in the world due to the combined factors of consistent economic growth and expanding gold jewellery demand with overall rise in income, Mr Lussier said.

India is the third important country among the top six core markets. Others are the US, Japan, Saudi Arabia, China and Italy. "New demand for diamond jewellery has come from new customers. A key factor in this success has been the use of information from specially commissioned consumer and trade studies, as well as research carried out by the DTC's Planning and Research Group," he said.

"In the last two years, we have achieved a growth of 50 per cent with marketing promotions of our unique and exclusive collection of diamond jewellery in the Indian market with four major brands - Nakshatra, Asmi, Sangini and Arisia," said Mr Lussier.

"The company has developed diamond jewellery collections of 500 exclusive and contemporary designs under each major brand. We will continue to promote these brands in 2005 too. DTC spent about Rs 28 crore for brand promotion in 2004 and is expected to spend Rs 30 crore during the current year," said Ms Cherie Tandon Saldanha, Marketing Director, DTC India.

These brands have attained a high aspirational and desirable image among its target customers, said Mr Lussier.

DTC sells rough diamonds to clients known as `sightholders'. De Beers has 84 sightholders worldwide; 32 of them are Indians. De Beers' diamond sales was $5.7 billion in 2004.

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