What Jewelers' Own Sales Data Reveals About Lab-Grown Diamonds in 2026: The Big Survey Findings Decoded for Indian Buyers

Lab-grown diamonds have essentially the same chemical composition, crystal structure, and optical and physical properties as natural diamonds — they are simply grown in a controlled laboratory environment rather than mined from the earth. In 2026, 92% of US jewelers now stock and sell them, up from 10% adoption in 2016. For Indian buyers, that number matters. The same supply chains, pricing pressures, and consumer behaviour shifts playing out in American jewellery stores are reshaping what you can buy, at what price, and with what expectations, right here in India.

INSTORE magazine's Big Survey 2026 — one of the most thorough annual polls of independent jewellers in the US — offers a rare, unfiltered window into how retailers in the world's largest diamond jewellery market are actually selling, positioning, and thinking about lab-grown versus natural diamonds. Combined with fresh export data from India's own gem trade body, the picture that emerges is one of structural, probably permanent, change.

Here is what the data says, and what it means if you are shopping for a diamond in India right now.

Key Data Snapshot: Lab-Grown vs Natural Diamonds in 2026

Metric	Lab-Grown Diamonds	Natural Diamonds	Source
US jeweller adoption rate (2026)	92%	Universal	INSTORE Big Survey 2026
India polished export volume FY2025-26	18.8 million carats	16.0 million carats	Times of India / GJEPC
Average export price per carat (India)	~$60–$74	~$760	Edahn Golan
Share of India's wholesale diamond export value	Less than 9%	More than 91%	Edahn Golan
Retail price, 1-carat stone (India approx.)	₹35,000–₹1 lakh	₹2 lakh–₹5 lakh	News4Bharat
Average engagement ring centre stone size (2025)	2.45 carats	~1 carat typical	Lab-Grown Diamond Dashboard
Diamond Standard Index decline from 2011 peak	—	Down 68%	Business Insider
#1 purchase driver (US jeweller survey)	Price/affordability (52%)	—	INSTORE Big Survey 2026

Why Do 92% of Jewelers Now Sell Lab-Grown Diamonds?

A decade ago, selling lab-grown diamonds was a fringe decision. In 2016, only about 10% of jewellers stocked them. By 2022, that figure had rocketed to 90%. The Big Survey 2026 puts current adoption at 92%, and the nature of that commitment has deepened. Only about one in five sellers now carries lab-grown diamonds solely at customer request, down from 27% in 2025. Most jewellers are actively stocking, displaying, and recommending them.

The 8% who still refuse to sell lab-grown diamonds have not grown their share of survey responses since 2021 — their position is stable but not gaining ground. Principled, perhaps, but commercially isolated.

For Indian buyers, this near-universal adoption in the world's most sophisticated retail jewellery market is a signal worth reading carefully. When independent jewellers — who answer to no mining company and no industry lobby — overwhelmingly choose to stock a product, it is because customers are asking for it and margins support it. Lab-grown diamonds are not a retailer-driven trend. They are a customer-driven one.

What Is Actually Driving Buyers to Choose Lab-Grown?

INSTORE's survey asked jewellers to rank the factors driving customers toward lab-grown diamonds. The result was unambiguous: 52% of respondents ranked price and affordability as the single most common decision driver. No other factor came close.

The second most cited factor was the ability to get a larger stone for the same budget — which is really another dimension of the same price argument. Jewellers reported customers explicitly saying: "I want the 2-, 3-, or 4-carat look I love, but I'm not spending ₹20,000–₹40,000 just because it's a natural diamond." (The original quote used dollar figures, but the sentiment translates directly to Indian buyers navigating the same trade-off.)

When asked about the biggest contributing factor behind natural diamonds losing market share, 28% of jewellers said consumers simply do not seem to care about the differences between lab-grown and natural. Another 18% pointed to decades of inflated pricing by De Beers and the traditional supply chain. Broader economic pressure accounted for 14%, and genuine technological or quality parity — meaning lab-grown diamonds are now good enough that the choice is rational, not just affordable — was cited by 11%.

The "Other" responses were revealing. Multiple jewellers pointed to social dynamics: young consumers can get a 3-carat or larger stone for the same price as a 1-carat natural, and peer pressure — the desire to have a showy ring for a photo-op — is a real force. Several others noted that the industry missed the opportunity to properly train younger sales staff about the differences, leaving a knowledge vacuum that lab-grown marketing filled.

This maps precisely onto what Indian buyers are experiencing. The price gap between lab-grown and natural diamonds in India is roughly 60–80% at comparable specifications. A 1-carat lab-grown diamond may retail in the range of ₹35,000 to ₹1 lakh, while a comparable mined stone costs ₹2 lakh to ₹5 lakh. That is not a marginal difference. It is the difference between buying a diamond and not buying one.

What Is Happening to the Bridal Market?

The survey data on bridal sales is particularly instructive. When asked whether their average bridal sale (including both natural and lab-grown) is getting bigger or smaller after accounting for inflation, 42% of jewellers said bigger or much bigger, 31% said much the same, and 26% said smaller or much smaller. The net picture is modestly positive — notable given the broader economic pressures of 2026.

The composition of those sales has shifted dramatically, though. The "bread-and-butter" 0.50–1.50 carat natural diamond bridal range — historically the backbone of most jewellery stores — is thinning out. 66% of jewellers say they are seeing this segment shrink. Only 16% say it is still steady, and just 6% have seen growth in this range.

What is replacing it? Two things simultaneously. Customers who previously would have bought a 1-carat natural are now buying a 2- or 3-carat lab-grown for the same money. At the top end, customers are trading further up into larger or rarer natural diamonds that lab-grown cannot easily replicate at the same prestige level.

Business Insider's analysis of Tenoris data confirms this bifurcation: natural diamonds weighing 2.5 to 2.74 carats were the fastest-growing natural category last year, with sales rising 19%. Sales of natural diamonds 1.99 carats and below generally contracted. The natural diamond market is, as Rapaport CEO Dan Mano put it, "increasingly bifurcated."

For Indian buyers, this means the mid-range natural diamond — the 0.75-carat or 1-carat solitaire that was the default engagement ring for a generation — is no longer the obvious choice it once was. The same budget now buys something visually much larger in lab-grown, and that comparison is hard to ignore when you are standing in a store.

How Are Jewelers Repositioning Natural Diamonds?

The survey asked jewellers how they are talking about natural diamonds differently than two or three years ago. The answers ranged from strategic to resigned, and they reveal the state of the industry's thinking.

The most common new talking point is that natural diamond prices are at a 30-year low, making now a good time to buy. Several jewellers are leaning on rarity, uniqueness, and heirloom potential. One offered an analogy that has gained traction: "It's like selling art — natural diamonds are the original piece and the lab is the print. The latter is nice, but the natural is special to the collector." Another gives customers an age comparison: natural diamonds are billions of years old, lab-grown ones are about six months old.

A more aggressive tactic has emerged in some stores: calling lab-grown diamonds "synthetic." One jeweller reported that this terminology shift has been turning customers back toward natural. Another has moved all lab-grown diamonds to a drawer beneath the display case, keeping the show exclusively for natural stones.

A significant and pragmatic group, though, has stopped steering customers at all. As one jeweller put it: "I price out a custom job in both natural and lab and let them decide. Every single sale has been lab." Another was blunter: "I don't care. I make money either way. I work for them."

This last position is commercially honest and increasingly common. For Indian buyers, it means you should not assume a jeweller recommending natural diamonds is giving you unbiased advice — or that one recommending lab-grown is either. Ask to see both options priced out for the same specifications, and make the decision yourself.

What Does the Younger Generation Actually Want?

The survey asked jewellers how the industry's traditional "diamonds equal romance and engagement" positioning is holding up with younger customers. The answers were split, but more jewellers see the message weakening than holding.

Several observations from jewellers are worth quoting directly, because they reflect dynamics equally visible in Indian urban markets:

Gen Z couples often live together, buy homes, and even have children before getting engaged. The element of surprise — a man buying a ring alone — has largely disappeared. Couples now shop together, and women frequently buy their own rings.
"They see getting natural as settling for a diamond shape and size they actually don't want."
"All their friends have 3 carats. Social pressure wins out."
"Romance to them doesn't come from objects, it's more from experience, so they will remember designing the ring themselves."
A growing minority of younger shoppers is moving away from diamonds entirely, toward natural sapphires and coloured stones.

One jeweller offered a sharp structural critique: "The industry failed to make a distinction and now lab diamonds benefit from the work the natural diamonds did to position themselves as an item for engagement rings." This is perhaps the most important observation in the entire survey. Decades of "a diamond is forever" marketing built a cultural norm around diamond engagement rings — and lab-grown diamonds have inherited that norm without paying for it.

A hopeful minority of jewellers expects a natural diamond rebound once everyone's friends are wearing the same big lab-grown stone, reasoning that differentiation will eventually favour natural. One jeweller noted: "Recently I have seen younger customers pulling back to natural as everyone has a big lab-grown now." Whether this is a genuine trend or wishful thinking is unclear from the data.

What Does India's Export Data Tell Buyers About Supply and Pricing?

In trade terms, a lab-grown diamond is a stone produced through either Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) or High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) processes, yielding a product physically and chemically identical to mined diamonds. India's role in producing these stones has become dominant, and the export data from FY2025-26 is the clearest evidence yet of how far the shift has gone.

India exported 18.8 million carats of polished lab-grown diamonds in FY2025-26, compared to 16 million carats of cut and polished natural diamonds — the first full financial year in which lab-grown volume exceeded natural in India's diamond export record. A decade ago, in 2015-16, India exported 33.51 million carats of natural diamonds and just 100,000 carats of lab-grown. The reversal is complete.

Edahn Golan's analysis of GJEPC data shows that in March and April 2026, lab-grown diamonds accounted for 51% and 50.4% of India's diamond export volume respectively. The average export price of polished lab-grown diamonds sits below $74 per carat, against approximately $760 per carat for natural diamonds — an 88–92% discount at the wholesale level, and that gap continues to widen.

For Indian buyers, this supply picture has direct implications. Surat — already the world's dominant diamond cutting and polishing centre, processing approximately 90% of the world's diamonds — has become a major production hub for lab-grown stones. The city has thousands of CVD reactors and a skilled workforce that has adapted from polishing to growing. Indian buyers are, in a very real sense, buying from their own backyard. Supply is abundant, quality is high, and prices are unlikely to rise structurally.

The rough input cost for lab-grown diamonds imported by Indian manufacturers currently averages $15 per carat. Polished goods sell wholesale for around $100 per carat. Retail markups on loose lab-grown diamonds typically run 250–300%, according to the Lab-Grown Diamond Dashboard, with average US retailer gross margins of approximately 73–74% for 1–3 carat rounds. Indian retail margins vary, but the structural economics are similar.

Is the Natural Diamond Market in Permanent Decline?

Business Insider's reporting on the diamond market frames the question starkly: the Diamond Standard Index, which tracks investment-grade diamond prices, cratered to its lowest-ever level in spring 2026, with prices down 68% from their 2011 peak. Global demand for natural diamond jewellery was flat in 2025 — a stabilisation, but one that followed three straight years of decline.

The natural diamond market is not collapsing uniformly. Large natural diamonds — those above 2 carats — are holding up better because they face less direct competition from lab-grown at the same price point. Elongated shapes like oval and marquise have seen around a 25% price increase over recent years, analyst Paul Zimnisky notes, because they are fashionable and relatively scarce in natural form. Brown diamonds marketed as "champagne" or "cognac" stones have seen unit sales spike dramatically — half-carat brown diamonds rose around 200% year-over-year in May 2026, according to Tenoris data.

What is struggling is the middle: the standard round brilliant natural diamond in the 0.5–2 carat range, which is exactly the segment lab-grown has most effectively replaced. This is the segment that dominated Indian bridal jewellery purchases for decades.

The honest answer to whether the natural diamond market will recover is: probably not in the way it was before. The structural factors — lab-grown supply growth, falling prices, quality parity, and a generation of buyers who do not attach the same cultural weight to "mined" — are not temporary. India's lab-grown diamond market is projected to grow from approximately ₹3,452 crore in FY25 to ₹5,179 crore by FY28 at around 14% CAGR, while the broader natural diamond market grows more slowly.

What Should Indian Buyers Take Away From All This?

The survey data and export figures together point to several concrete conclusions for anyone shopping for a diamond in India in 2026.

Price is the dominant driver, and the price gap is real. 52% of jewellers globally rank affordability as the top purchase driver. In India, where a 1-carat lab-grown diamond can cost ₹35,000–₹1 lakh against ₹2–5 lakh for a comparable natural stone, that gap is not marginal — it is major. If budget matters, lab-grown delivers more stone for the money, full stop.

The size shift is real and socially visible. The average lab-grown engagement ring centre stone grew from 1.31 carats in 2019 to 2.45 carats in 2025. Buyers who choose lab-grown are not settling for less — they are getting more, visually. The social dynamics jewellers describe in the US survey — "all their friends have 3 carats" — are beginning to appear in Indian urban markets too.

Natural diamonds are not worthless, but their value has narrowed. They retain appeal for buyers who genuinely value geological rarity, heirloom potential, or the cultural weight of a mined stone. Large naturals (above 2 carats) and distinctive shapes are holding value better than standard rounds. But the 30-year price low that jewellers are now using as a selling point is also a warning: natural diamond prices have fallen sharply, and resale value for standard sizes is limited.

India's supply chain is your advantage. Surat's dominance in both lab-grown production and natural diamond polishing means Indian buyers have access to some of the world's best-quality lab-grown diamonds at competitive prices. Buying from a certified, reputable Indian retailer — whether online or in-store — gives you proximity to the supply chain that buyers in the US or Europe do not have. For guidance on finding the right store, see our guide to the best lab-grown diamond stores in Delhi and our roundup of the best lab-grown diamond engagement rings in India for 2026.

Certification matters more than ever. As lab-grown production scales and prices fall, quality variation increases. Always ask for a GIA or IGI certificate for any stone above 0.5 carats. The certificate tells you the actual 4Cs of the stone you are buying, not the category average.

The "synthetic" framing is a sales tactic, not a scientific one. Some jewellers are deliberately using the word "synthetic" to steer customers toward natural diamonds. Scientifically, lab-grown diamonds are not synthetic in the way that cubic zirconia or moissanite are — they are chemically and physically identical to natural diamonds. The terminology debate is real, but buyers should understand it as a marketing choice, not a factual distinction.

For buyers considering specific ring styles, our guides on 1.5 to 2 carat oval lab-grown diamond solitaire rings and best curved solitaire engagement rings offer India-specific buying advice that reflects the current market pricing and availability.

The Bottom Line

The INSTORE Big Survey 2026 is not a document about lab-grown diamonds being good or bad. It is a document about what is actually happening in jewellery stores, reported by the people who run them. What is happening is this: lab-grown diamonds have become the default choice for most engagement ring buyers, driven overwhelmingly by price and the desire for a larger stone. Natural diamonds retain a market, but it is narrower and more defined than it was five years ago.

India sits at the centre of this shift — as the world's largest producer and polisher of lab-grown diamonds, and as a domestic market where the price gap between lab-grown and natural is among the most dramatic anywhere. The data from Surat's export figures, from Edahn Golan's wholesale price analysis, and from INSTORE's retailer survey all point in the same direction: lab-grown diamonds are not a passing trend. They are the new normal, and the buyers who understand that are the ones who will make the most informed purchasing decisions.