The Diamond Federation of Hong Kong, China (DFHK) conducted the 2015 Consumer Choices on Diamond Consumption Research during October to November 2015 to analyse the diamond consumption patterns in Hong Kong, and hence to help the trade provide end-consumers with targeted services.
About 90 percent of the 1,000 responding Hong Kong residents said purchased or given diamonds should be natural. Ninety-five percent of the respondents held that engagement rings had to be set with natural diamonds. Around 45 percent of both female and male respondents ranked natural diamond rings higher than honeymoons, wedding gifts or wedding parties.
Roughly 80 percent of the female respondents would feel disappointed when finding the diamond they received was not natural.
In terms of diamond size, nearly 60 percent of the female respondents wanted the stone to be at least one carat; for men, however, over 60 percent of them would propose with a diamond below one carat.
When asked to rank ‘rare and precious’, ‘eternal love’, ‘commitment’, ‘true love’ and ‘fortune, power and status’ in the order of significance that natural diamonds and synthetic diamonds brought to them, nearly 60 percent of respondents thought natural stones would mean ‘eternal love’ and ‘rare and precious’ most, while over 70 percent said synthetic diamonds did not have the five significance as natural diamonds.
According to the report, over 50 percent of respondents aged 24 or below, and nearly 60 percent of others who earned less than HK$10,000 a month, owned one to five pieces of natural diamond jewellery. This finding indicates that natural diamond consumers are being younger, and income may not be a decisive factor of buying diamond jewellery which has become a lifestyle product.
Most of the respondents did not know much about the formation of natural diamonds. Some even thought it only took one to 10 years.
Lawrence Ma, founding president and chairman of DFHK, said: “From this research, we can see that Hong Kong consumers are indeed keen on purchasing natural diamonds. At the same time, the industry should put more effort into stimulating consumers’ desire for natural diamonds by enhancing their confidence about the product. Therefore, DFHK will keep promoting the ‘Natural Diamond Quality Assurance’ (NDQA) Mark Scheme to educate consumers, and to protect their interests so that they are equipped to make an educated decision. Meanwhile, I believe that the collaboration with trade members in promoting trade integrity and best business practices under the scheme will foster stability in the market, and pave the way to a brighter future for the diamond industry in Hong Kong.”
The NDQA Mark Scheme was launched by DFHK in March 2015, with the slogan “Diamond from nature we treasure; Assurance of quality we promised”. According to Chow Kit Shing, vice chairman of DFHK’s retail division, by the end of November 2015, 325 companies have registered for the memberships, and almost 90 percent of them are from DFHK’s retail division. He stated that all the members have passed the product sampling evaluation since the scheme was launched, meaning diamonds that they are selling are all natural like what they pledged.
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