Diamantaires and jewelry suppliers are always looking for the next undiscovered hot market for their jewelry. While America continues it reign as the world’s largest jewelry market – by value, it accounts for about 50 percent of all diamonds and jewelry sold globally – and its growth is predicted to remain robust for at least the next decade or more, the U.S. is a hotly competitive market, both at the supplier level and among retailers of jewelry.  

Wouldn’t it be nice to sell jewelry into a market – some out-of-the-way place loaded with wealthy shoppers – that has been overlooked by most others in the industry?  

Unfortunately, in a world of instant electronic communications, there aren’t many secrets. And that’s the short story about where the next hot market for jewelry will be. Everyone thinks they already have the answer.

Recently, the Population Reference Bureau (PR, an organization that analyzes complex demographic information, published its annual World Population Data Sheet. The name underplays this data. it is far more than simply population trends.

Want to know births and deaths per 1,000 population of each country in the world? It’s there. Want to know the life expectancy of someone living in the UAE? It’s there. Want to know the carbon dioxide emissions per capita in Mongolia? It’s there. 

Even more important, the PRB data sheet projects global population by country (as well as some other statistics) for the years 2025 and 2050. So, if you operate a family-owned business, you can see where the market will likely move when you children and grandchildren are running your business.  

In an effort to help jewelers and diamantaires find the next hot market, we’ve taken some base data from PRB’s new database, and we’ve crunched the numbers to see if there is an undiscovered market for jewelers. The quick answer: probably not. On the other hand, there are some up-and-coming markets that jewelers with a long term view should keep on their radar.  

There are two filters that determine how viable a market may be to jewelers: 

How large is the population?
How much money do consumers have?

Fortunately, the new PRB database answers both of these questions, and provides additional filters for jewelers who might be enticed by some of the results. For example, why aren’t Canada and Australia, both countries with high personal income levels, great jewelry markets? The quick answer is this: the population density is one of the lowest in the world, with only three people per square kilometer. You simply can’t efficiently reach such a low population density with a low-cost marketing strategy. by comparison, the world’s population density is 49 people per kilometer; the U.S. has 31 people per square kilometer and the U.K. has 251 people per square kilometer.  

China: Move Over, India’s on the Way..

China may be the largest country today with 1.3 billion people, but by 2050, PRB’s demographers are projecting that India will far surpass China’s population. The tables below illustrate the world’s ten largest countries today and in 2050.

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