JB Insights
Navigating The ₹1.5 Trillion Diamond Opportunity
As the global diamond industry moves toward a projected $1.5 trillion opportunity, brands are redefining how they connect with modern consumers through authenticity, innovation, and strategic expansion. In this exclusive conversation, Mallikarjuna Reddy Yarabolu, MD- Forevermark, De Beers India, shares insights with JewelBuzz on Forevermark India’s growth roadmap, Gen Z engagement strategies, retail expansion plans, and the enduring emotional appeal of natural diamonds in an evolving luxury landscape shaped by value-conscious yet aspirational consumers.
Q: The latest industry reports project the diamond market to evolve into a Rs 1.5 trillion opportunity with a CAGR of 12–15%. What is your perspective on this growth trajectory?
We are incredibly excited about the future of this category. India is entering a powerful growth phase, and we see natural diamonds playing a very important role in that journey. Our focus is on consistently building a meaningful diamond jewellery brand while staying deeply connected to evolving consumer aspirations.
At the heart of our philosophy is “Consumer Experience First.” Every collection, every design, and every retail touchpoint must align with the consumer’s lifestyle, emotions, and occasions of celebration.
Q: Gen Z consumers are reshaping the luxury landscape. How are you balancing product portfolios and price points to appeal to this audience?
We have developed a very clear and disciplined roadmap. Our offerings are structured across six distinct price segments, enabling us to cater to a broad consumer base — from aspirational buyers to premium luxury clientele.
Our philosophy is simple: irrespective of the price point, the consumer must experience undeniable value. At the same time, we work very closely with our manufacturing partners to ensure there is absolutely no compromise on quality, craftsmanship, or authenticity.
India remains a highly value-conscious market, and our segmentation strategy allows us to address diverse consumer expectations while maintaining brand integrity.
Q: Retail expansion today requires both precision and foresight. What does Forevermark India’s growth strategy look like over the next few years?
Our expansion strategy is highly strategic and market-focused. We are not pursuing scale for the sake of scale — we are focusing on relevance and proximity to the consumer.
This year, our goal is to open 20 stores, with significant scaling planned over the next five years. Our growth will span metros, Tier 1, and emerging Tier 2 cities, with a strong emphasis on “must-have” markets rather than “nice-to-have” locations.
If we identify strong potential in a specific micro-market, whether it is Borivali or another high-growth retail destination, we ensure we establish a meaningful presence there. We also deeply value our partnerships with malls, landlords, and retail ecosystems that help us connect more effectively with consumers.
Q: India’s festive calendar drives strong jewellery demand. How do you see consumer sentiment for natural diamonds during occasions such as Akshaya Tritiya and Diwali?
The natural diamond category is witnessing remarkable momentum, with growth levels that are outperforming many adjacent sectors. Indian consumers continue to associate diamonds with emotion, celebration, and long-term value.
To celebrate this evolving consumer sentiment, Forevermark has introduced a first-of-its-kind Diamond Gold Coin, which has already received an extremely positive response. Whether viewed as an investment, a trade-up purchase, or a symbol of celebration, natural diamonds continue to resonate strongly with consumers during festive periods.
Q: In a market as diverse as India, how do you build lasting consumer trust across regions and demographics?
Trust is built through consistency, transparency, and disciplined execution. India is diverse not only culturally, but also economically, and consumers across every segment expect genuine value.
That is why our six-tier pricing strategy is designed to ensure inclusivity without compromising quality standards. We remain extremely transparent in our communication and rigorous in our quality processes, ensuring the brand continues to symbolize integrity, authenticity, and reliability.
Q: You speak passionately about natural diamonds. Why is the “natural” aspect so central to your brand philosophy?
Because authenticity carries an emotional resonance that cannot be replicated. The vibrancy, rarity, and emotional significance of a natural diamond are truly unique.
Consumers today are intelligent and highly informed. They understand the difference, and they know what resonates with them emotionally. While awareness across categories is increasing, we remain firmly committed to the natural diamond segment because it represents timelessness, purity, and enduring value.
Our role is simply to create beautiful and meaningful pieces that consumers will cherish across generations.
Q: As Forevermark India strengthens its market presence, what are the core pillars driving the brand’s long-term vision?
Our growth strategy is anchored in three core pillars:
- A Multi-Tiered Value Proposition that caters to India’s diverse consumer landscape.
- Manufacturing Excellence & Partner Synergy to ensure uncompromising quality and authenticity.
- Hyper-Local Expansion & Consumer Relevance driven by precision-led retail growth and occasion-based engagement.
By combining operational excellence with deep consumer understanding, we believe Forevermark India is strongly positioned to outpace industry benchmarks and strengthen the emotional connection consumers share with natural diamonds.
JB Insights
The Woman Wearing The Diamond Was Never The One The Ad Was Talking To
Disha Shah, Founder & Designer, DiAi Designs Says That The Brands That Shift From “She Deserves It” to “She Chose It” Won’t Just Win Cultural Relevance – They’ll Own The Future Of Jewellery Marketing.
Indian jewellery advertising has always centred the woman. She has been the face of every campaign, draped in gold, luminous at the occasion, receiving the gift with practised grace. What she rarely was, until recently, was the intended audience.
The creative language of the category was built around a genuine economic reality. For decades, the buyer in Indian fine jewellery was the patriarch, the husband, the father, the family elder making a financial decision on behalf of a woman whose purchasing autonomy was limited. Advertising followed the money. The gift reveal, the bridal close-up, the family approval shot: these were not arbitrary creative choices. They reflected who held the purse strings, and they became so embedded in the category’s visual grammar that they outlasted the conditions that created them by an entire generation.
That structural reality has now reversed. Jewellery purchases now extend beyond weddings and festivals to daily wear, driven by financially independent working women. The self-purchasing woman is no longer an emerging segment; she is the category’s fastest-growing buyer, approaching the decision differently from the buyer the industry originally designed itself around. She is not waiting for an occasion. She is not waiting for someone to present a box. She researched the piece, chose it, and bought it because she wanted it.
The advertising, for the most part, has not caught up.
Some brands are beginning to recognise this. CaratLane’s #WearYourWins movement and Tanishq’s sustained push toward the “woman as decision-maker” are meaningful steps. But what makes these campaigns commercially smart is not just cultural alignment. Research from Harvard Business School finds that women systematically provide less favourable assessments of their own performance and potential than equally performing men. This documented self-promotion gap persists even when women know they have outperformed others. Campaigns that actively celebrate female self-recognition are not just filling a creative gap. They are responding to a behavioural reality that has gone largely unaddressed in the category. The brands doing this well are not being progressive for their own sake. They are being accurate about who their buyer is and what she needs to hear.
Look at the Women’s Day 2026 campaigns across the industry. The conversation is clearly starting to pivot. Brands are finally stepping away from the usual gifting tropes and reframing jewellery as a tool for personal milestones and self-expression. But these remain exceptions. The dominant campaign language of Indian jewellery- the gesture, the reveal, the woman being seen rather than deciding- has not structurally changed.
The media mix tells the same story. Titan leaned heavily on television in FY25, with ad volume surging to 77% of its mix, a broadcast medium built for household reach rather than the individual, financially independent woman who now represents the category’s fastest-growing buyer.
Meanwhile, digitally native BlueStone achieved 50% of online jewellery ad volumes on a budget nearly ten times smaller than Titan’s. The channel that reaches the self-purchasing woman directly is delivering outsized results on a fraction of the spend. The implication for where the industry should be directing its creative attention is fairly clear.
Consider what a brief genuinely written for this buyer would look like. No occasion in the shot. No second person in the frame presents anything. The opening line is not “for the woman who deserves to be celebrated.” It is “she saw it, she wanted it, she bought it.” The product earns its place not through sentiment but through desire. The copy does not explain why she is worth it. It assumes she already knows. That is not a tonal adjustment. It is a fundamentally different creative architecture, and very few briefs in this category have been written that way.
The LGD category has a specific opportunity here that established houses do not. Without decades of legacy campaign language to protect, an independent designer in this space can build advertising from a blank page, one written entirely around the woman who is actually making the purchase. The brief does not have to accommodate inherited assumptions about who the buyer is or what she is waiting for. That is not a small advantage. In a category where the dominant creative language was built around a buyer who is no longer the one making the decision, starting without that inheritance may be the most powerful creative position available.
The woman wearing the diamond has always been visible. What is changing now is who gets to decide. The brands that build their creative around that reality will not just be more culturally relevant. They will be better positioned for every year that follows. The advertising has not caught up yet. But the buyer already has.
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JewelBuzz is Asia’s First Digital Jewellery Media & India’s No.1 B2B Jewellery Magazine, published by AM Media House. Since 2016, we’ve been the trusted source for jewellery news, market trends, trade insights, exhibitions, podcasts, and brand stories, connecting jewellers, retailers, and industry professionals worldwide.