Diamond Market Data: AWDC, Bain, and De Beers Public Figures

The Antwerp World Diamond Centre publishes an annual press briefing on Antwerp diamond trade¹. Antwerp's importance is structural: the city handles approximately eighty-six per cent of the world's rough diamonds by value and over fifty per cent of polished diamonds, through the four Antwerp diamond bourses and the supporting cutting, polishing, and customs infrastructure.

AWDC's January 2026 press briefing reported on full-year 2025 activity and on Q1 2026. Headline points from that briefing:

• Q1 2026 trade volume growth of approximately three point seven per cent over Q1 2025.
• Q1 2026 trade values approximately twenty-seven per cent below year-ago levels on weak polished demand and inventory overhang.
• 2025 full-year activity tracked through expected seasonal patterns with continued downward price pressure on rough.
• India as the chair of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme for 2026, with active discussions on traceability and a continuing impasse on widening the conflict-diamond definition (see Chapter 10).

The trade-volume growth alongside trade-value decline tells a clear price-only story: more carats moving, but at lower per-carat values, with rough prices doing the bulk of the adjustment.

Bain & Company's Global Diamond Industry Report is the most widely cited industry-wide publication on diamond market structure². The 2023 to 2024 reporting window provided the wholesale and retail ratio anchors used elsewhere on this site.

Each row reports a single source's figure for a specific metric in a specific window. Direct comparison requires care, as the denominators (rough vs polished, volume vs value, retail vs wholesale, US vs global) differ.

Bain reporting and trade-press analysis converge on a directional pattern: lab-grown's share of engagement-ring diamond demand has grown substantially since the 2018 Lightbox launch, particularly in the US, while natural retains the dominant share globally by dollar value. Specific market-share percentages vary by publisher and are sensitive to methodology².

We avoid quoting a single market-share number here. Two examples make the methodology problem concrete. A figure that says lab-grown is sixty per cent of engagement-ring diamonds may be true by carat count and false by dollar value because lab-grown carats sell at a fraction of natural carat prices. A figure that says lab-grown is twenty per cent of the global diamond market may be measuring all diamond jewellery globally, where natural's share by dollar is much larger. The directional consensus, that lab-grown is a meaningful and growing slice of US engagement-ring demand, is robust across sources. A specific percentage requires citing a specific source with its own denominator.

Market-share numbers in the diamond category are particularly fragile because the natural and lab-grown segments differ on pricing, supply structure, and grading. Five common methodology choices each yield meaningfully different results:

• By carat count vs by dollar value: lab-grown's share by carat is much higher than its share by dollar because of the price gap.
• Polished vs rough: rough-trade figures pick up the natural side strongly because most lab-grown polished comes from rough that does not move through traditional rough channels.
• Engagement-ring-only vs all diamond jewellery: lab-grown share is highest in the engagement-ring segment and lower in the broader jewellery category.
• US vs global: lab-grown share is highest in the US and lower in many other markets, particularly Asia-Pacific.
• Retailer-survey vs trade-import data: the two methodologies sample different parts of the market and give different snapshots.

Where possible, we cross-check market figures across the three primary publishers (AWDC, Bain, De Beers public materials) and treat trade-press figures (Rapaport, JCK, National Jeweler) as secondary. Industry-funded reports (whether from natural-diamond advocacy or lab-grown promotion) are read with caution for the obvious incentive reasons. Peer-reviewed work is preferred for any environmental or lifecycle analysis (see Chapter 11).

Where this fits in the reference

This chapter is a snapshot of public market figures with explicit notes on methodology. The next chapter, The Kimberley Process, covers the regulatory scheme on which AWDC reports natural-rough movement, and Chapter 11 brings in peer-reviewed lifecycle data.