Forevermark, the diamond jewellery brand from De Beers, opened its 2,000th retail door globally in December 2016, De Beers CEO Bruce Cleaver said, noting that this milestone reflected the “power of the brand”, its “compelline message” and the “strong commercial platform” provided by its partners.

Speaking at the Forevermark Partner Cocktail event held in New York last week, Cleaver also reoprted that a survey of Forevermark Jewellers conducted by the company indicated that their “diamond sales for the holiday season were +6.4% over the same period in 2015 and +7.6% for the year as a whole”. He added that Forevermark sales were “in line with overall diamond jewellery growth”, and that the margins reported on Forevermark diamonds and diamond jewellery “were four margin points higher than generic”.

Cleaver said that this performance compared well with the overall picture for US jewellery Retail based on the Mastercard Spending Pulse report, which showed sales up for the year at +0.4%, and holiday sales for Independents rising 1.4% in December, with overall jewellery retail showing 0.7% positive growth during the month.

The De Beers CEO told the retailers that the brand’s impressive growth trajectory was boosted by some of its recent initiatives such as the Responsible Sourcing campaign promoting its efforts supporting women and the environment; new steps on the product front including the inscription of Forevermark diamonds down to 10 points and the Forevermark Petit program providing the opportunity for a Forevermark diamond to be set in jewellery which is 100% Forevermark approved; the Black Label collection with fancy shapes and several consumer marketing campaigns like Seize the Day, two stone jewellery and others.

He said that these efforts are “paving the way for the brand’s future success as we extend our promise to a new generation of consumers while maintaining the power of the diamond dream for those who are already part of our story”.

He added that the brand would “build out their Partner Development resource this year, hiring more people across the country”  and collaborating “directly with each Forevermark jeweller to develop a business plan with clear goals that we will work in partnership to achieve”, before concluding, “And with the economic tailwinds currently with us in the US, there should be plenty of opportunity in 2017”.