Black diamonds drive jewel sales

Johannesburg - The country's affluent black community and women have been driving recent local jewellery sales, an expert said on Friday.

"Black diamonds are driving South Africa's recession-proof manufacturing jewellery market with many asking jewellers to discreetly visit them in their homes so that they are not seen walking into high-end stores and to prevent gossip about very expensive purchases," said Ian Furman, managing director of Jewellery Replacement Consultants in Rivonia, Sandton.

Overall, however, the biggest buyers of jewellery regardless of race were career women aged 35 to 55.

"While a luxury car is a wealth and success symbol for a man, for women it's jewellery," Furman said.

Globally, career women were driving a $318bn global jewellery market that was proving "recession proof".

And with women making up a third of South Africa's new dollar millionaires (there are more than 55 000 dollar millionaires in South Africa in total), according to the World Wealth Report produced by Merrill Lynch/Capgemini, they are providing a welcome bonanza for South Africa's jewellery trade, especially discreet retailers and wholesalers, Furman said.

World-wide the biggest spenders on jewellery are women aged 35 to 44, followed by women aged 45 to 54.

According to a report from Global Jewellery Retailing, "the resilience of the luxury market results from increasing global wealth, passion investing and strong demand from emerging markets for branded jewellery and status symbol watches".

The report added that global expenditure on jewellery and watches was expected to accelerate over the next five years, "recession be damned", growing by 35% to $318bn a year, with sales of luxury items doubling to around $94bn a year.

South Africa, despite being the world's largest producer of gem diamonds and platinum and one of the largest producers of gold, has no figures for jewellery sales or trends, but Jewellery Council of South Africa chief executive officer Lourens Mare estimated that the market was worth R2bn, of which R600m worth of jewellery was imported.

Last year, jewellers used 7.81 tonnes of gold in jewellery making.

GFMS Precious Metals Research and Consultancy, research director Neil Meader said that steel had become more fashionable than silver, while silver was more fashionable than gold, except white gold.

He added that the rapid escalation of jewellery as a "self-purchase" -women buying for themselves instead of waiting for a gift - has seen the market open to more materials.

"Among the top 20 jewellery advertisers in Italy in 2006, as an example, the three highest spenders (were from) the steel sector while the top two gold jewellery advertisers were in fourth and seventh place."

- Sapa