A comparative research study conducted by ALROSA, the world leader in diamond mining and the renowned market research company GfK on the behavior and consumption patterns of diamond consumers in the United States and China, two of the world’s leading diamond consumers, has yielded some very interesting results.
While presently, the USA is the world’s largest consumer market of diamond jewelry, China has emerged as the world’s most rapidly growing consumer market. Hence, a comparative study of the two markets would be both informative and interesting for the world’s diamond producers, to adopt appropriate strategies to cater to the two leading consumer markets.
The methodology adopted for the research conducted in the autumn of 2017 made use of a sample population of more than 4,000 diamond jewelry consumers in both USA and China, of both sexes, between the ages of 25 and 55 years, with an average or above average income, who bought or received diamond jewelry as a gift within the previous 12 months.
The analysis of the answers received for the questions asked from the participants brought out some common facts for the consumption pattern in both countries, such as that the consumers are interested in buying diamonds; they are planning to buy them in the future and that they purchase for themselves much more often than as a gift.
For the question for whom do they plan to purchase jewelry next time the answers for both USA and China were almost parallel. 54% of Chinese consumers said they want to purchase jewelry for themselves as opposed to 51% of American consumers. While 19% and 18% of Chinese and USA respondents respectively said they wanted to purchase jewelry next time as a gift, 27% and 30% of Chinese and USA respondents respectively said they wanted to do so both for themselves and as a gift.
On the question of whether they would recommend diamond jewelry as a gift if their friends sought their advice on a present to a loved one, again the response was almost close with 34% and 37% respectively of Chinese and USA respondents answering in the affirmative.
However significant differences in the consumer pattern also emerged in respect of more specific questions. To the question whether they planned to buy at least one piece of diamond jewelry next year, 86% of Chinese respondents answered in the affirmative compared to 59% of respondents from the USA.
On the question of number of diamond jewelry purchases per year as gift and for themselves 44% and 38% respectively of Chinese and USA respondents said they purchase only one piece of such jewelry per year. While 34% and 30% respectively of Chinese and USA respondents said that they make two purchases every year, 14% and 19% respectively of Chinese and USA respondents said that they make three purchases of diamond jewelry every year.
On the question for whom diamond jewelry was purchased over the last year, the responses for both Chinese and USA consumers were again almost parallel. While 73% and 71% respectively of Chinese and USA respondents said they purchased diamond jewelry over the last year for themselves only, 27% and 29% respectively of Chinese and USA respondents said they purchased such jewelry last year as gifts.
On the question of relationship between the gift giver and receiver, most often it was found that the gift receiver was either a husband or wife, in about 60% of the cases among both the Chinese and the USA consumers. Jewelry gifts given to parents and friends was respectively 14% and 12% in the USA and 9% for both categories in China.
With respect to the age groups of diamond jewelry recipients it was found people between the age of 26 to 45 years were the highest recipients of such gifts, which was 71% of consumers for China and 57% of consumers for USA. In the age group greater than 46 years gift recipients for the USA (25%) was higher than for China (16%). Teenagers falling between age group 11 to 25 years receive more diamond jewelry gifts in USA (12+4%) than in China (13+1%). Likewise, children below 17 years too receive more diamond jewelry gifts in USA (4+2%) than in China, which was only 1%.
