De Beers has begun to study reusable diamonds in order to get a first-hand view of this poorly understood aspect of the industry, which, as some fear, can compete with diamonds for a place in the market.
According to Business Day, referring to the chief executive of De Beers Philippe Mellier, the program to study this aspect of the industry, called the Diamond Reselling Insight Program, was launched this month.
"We do not know what the scale of the secondary diamond market really is," he said, "We want to understand the secondary market in detail, because now there is a lot of second-hand information and rumors."
Tacy's president and journalist Chaim Even-Zohar estimates the $ 1 billion re-use market. 146 million carats worth of diamonds worth a little less than $ 18 billion were produced last year. The year 2005 was a record year, when 176 million carats.
According to De Beers, over the past five years, US jewelry companies have closed more than 2,000 stores that have not been replaced by other outlets.
Business Day notes that, in response to a question about De Beers' possible exit into the secondary market, Mellier said: "We will determine our next steps based on the results of the study. It's too early now."
Analyst RBC Capital Markets Des Kilalea (Des Kilalea), the newspaper writes, said that De Beers begins to "worry a little" because of the fact that in the secondary markets of diamonds is sold almost as much as in the diamond market.