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Forevermark, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the diamond group De Beers, is seeing a steady growth in business in India and is confident of sustaining it in the coming years.
According to Sachin Jain, President, Forevermark, the company is likely to sell close to 2,50,000 diamond pieces in 2018, 50 per cent higher than that in 2017.
“I am bullish about the Indian market, the fundamental desire to own diamonds is strong. As an industry, we have been growing in double digits in the last five years. Our company has been growing at 50-60 per cent every year, though our base was small. But moving forward, a healthy double-digit growth is what we envisage,” Jain told BusinessLine .
Though availability of finance to the diamond industry has become tougher following the scams involving diamantaires such as Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi , it has not affected demand.
“Post the scams, there were discussions on the impact on our business and how much consumers will be hit by perception issues. We made headlines for all the wrong reasons but the core demand wasn’t affected,” he said.
“People are now more cautious and there is a greater affinity to organised players,” he added. According to Jain, Forevermark has gained on that front. “Young consumers are not running away from the industry. They aspire to own diamonds but are looking for more confident solutions, permanence and modernity in concepts.”
Globally, for Forevermark, America continues to be the No.1 market at 51 per cent followed by China at 17 per cent and India at 8 per cent. The Indian gem and jewellery market is pegged at $35 billion and diamond jewellery accounts for 15-16 per cent and has been growing at 9-10 per cent every year.
“The company expects India to be its ‘biggest growth engine’ in the next five years. A majority of this growth will come from the smaller towns and cities,” he said.
The company, which currently has 250 stores across 52 markets, expects to have 300 stores in the next two years. “Large cities give you multiple revenues but strong throughput comes from smaller towns. You just need the right kind of partner,” he said.
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