Diamond traders are crunching the numbers and predicting that wedding bells will soon be ringing again and cash registers will be rolling.
After a long post-pandemic lull, during which singles didn’t even see each other during the year-long coronavirus lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, a mountain of industry data shows marriage commitments are on the rise again, experts say.
Signet, the jewelry giant that owns chains such as Jared, Zales, Kay and Blue Nile, expects the number of weddings to increase by 10% this year.
One reason for this is that couples are hitting the 3.25-year milestone that it typically takes to get engaged, according to Signet’s proprietary database, which tracks pre-engagement and dating activity.
“There was a gap in engagement during lockdown as people weren’t going out and meeting each other,” said Katie Spencer, a spokesperson for Signet, “but engagement has picked up, which is a boon for Signet.”
To capitalize on a new wave of demand that began picking up late last year, Signet is teaming up with De Beers, the world’s largest diamond producer, for a fall marketing offensive.
In a press release last month, the companies said they expect the number of subscriptions to grow by 25% over the next three years.
According to Signet data, an average of 2.8 million couples plan to get married each year.
According to the company, between 2.1 million and 2.2 million couples got engaged last year.
Bermuda-based Signet is scheduled to report quarterly results on Thursday.
The return to normalcy would be a huge encouragement for an industry that has been hit by inflation, inventory bloat and discounting in recent years due to a dramatic shift from natural diamonds to more affordable man-made diamonds.
“The jewelry industry has not been able to regain the significant growth it achieved during the pandemic,” said Jim Sanderson, an analyst at Northcoast Research, noting that lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 prompted stockpiling by jewelry enthusiasts who stayed home.
“But it’s not as weak as feared,” added Sanderson, who recently released research showing “engagement season is looking very strong” compared to a year ago.
Engagement ring sales began to surge in early 2023. New York-based Ritani In midtown Manhattan, the majority of couples are buying lab-grown diamonds, according to Lia Papasifakis, Ritani’s product director.
Litani sales are up 30% year over year, but the number of rings sold is up 42% as LGD prices continue to fall.
“We’re very busy right now as a lot of people are getting engaged over the summer before going on holiday to travel,” the jeweller added.
Signet says most efforts in the U.S. will be multicultural, led by Hispanic Americans.
Signet CEO Virginia Drosos noted in December that the number of cohabiting couples (a “late-stage milestone”) had increased by 9 percentage points year over year, and Google searches for engagement rings had increased 10%, the first increase in two years.
“The percentage of couples progressing to the engagement stage has improved by five percentage points, a statistically significant move over the past 18 months,” Drosos said at the time.
Additionally, roughly 80% of unmarried millennial and Gen Z adults say they want to eventually get engaged and married, which is a “noticeable improvement” from the 2018 survey, Drosos said.
