India’s lab-grown diamond shipments top natural volume, value lags

India’s lab-grown diamond trade has crossed a symbolic line: in March and April, shipments by volume overtook naturals, but the money told a different story. Gross loose lab-grown exports reached about 1.3 million carats in March and 1.4 million carats in April, ahead of roughly 1.2 million carats and 1.3 million carats for natural diamonds in the same two months. That gave lab-grown stones about 51% of exported diamond volume in March and about 50.5% in April, while still accounting for less than 9% of wholesale export value.

That split is the clearest measure yet of where the category sits in the market. Lab-grown diamonds are moving in greater quantity, but they are doing so at a fraction of the price of mined stones, which still command the bulk of value. In India, the world’s dominant diamond-cutting and polishing hub, that matters because value, not carat count, ultimately determines who has pricing power.

Surat, the country’s manufacturing heart, sits at the center of the shift. Factories there have spent years building output in lab-grown stones alongside naturals, and the numbers now show how much that bet has reshaped the export mix. Kirit Bhansali, the chairman of the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council, has described lab-grown diamonds as a key export driver, but the category’s momentum has come with unmistakable price pressure. Wholesale lab-grown diamond prices fell 14% in the first quarter of 2026, with larger stones seeing the sharpest declines.

The longer trend line suggests this was never a simple one-off surge. GJEPC reported polished lab-grown diamond exports rose 37.31% in FY 2022-23, reaching Rs. 13,466.42 crores, before later slowing and then falling 5.75% in April-June 2024 and 8.59% in April-December 2024 as supply-chain disruptions, weak demand, declined prices and market saturation took hold. India’s customs-duty exemption on lab-grown diamond seeds, extended through 31 March 2026 in Budget 2026 proposals, has also helped keep production economics attractive even as selling prices softened.

The larger diamond business still belongs to naturals on value. In India’s wider gem and jewellery exports, cut and polished diamonds remained the biggest category in FY 2025-26, contributing 43.9% of total exports and $12.16 billion. That is the real story behind the lab-grown milestone: volume may now lean synthetic, but price power still sits with the stones that are harder to discount.