De Beers has announced its intention to discontinue the production of lab-grown diamonds for its Lightbox consumer brand, concluding the company’s six-year venture into lab-grown diamond jewellery. Instead, Lightbox will transition entirely to natural diamond jewellery.
The decision to pivot away from lab-grown diamond jewellery comes after Lightbox significantly reduced its retail prices by up to 40 per cent.
As reported by Rapaport, De Beers will instead focus its lab-grown diamond production to subsidiary Element Six. The company will merge three chemical vapour deposition (CVD) plants into a singular US$94 million (C$128 million) facility in Portland, Oreg.
“We believe the value of lab-grown diamonds lies in technology rather than in jewelry,” De Beers CEO Al Cook said. The company hopes to make Element Six into “the leader in synthetic-diamond technology solutions, Cook explains. “This starts with concentrating all our resources in a single world-class CVD hub.”
The announcement coincides with De Beers’ impending separation from Anglo American, its majority shareholder with an 85% ownership stake. The company also announced a pause in all Canadian operations except for its Gahcho Kué mine.
