Vummidi Bangaru eyes Rs 1,000 cr turnover this fiscal

Jewellery brand Vummidi Bangaru Jewellers (VBJ) is targeting Rs 1,000 crore turnover during the current fiscal. Its turnover in the last fiscal was Rs 750 crore.

The jewellery brand, which has 2 showrooms in Chennai and one in Jayanagar, Bengaluru, is also planning to foray into a new city soon.

Jithendra Vummidi, Managing Director of VBJ said, "We opened our Bengaluru showroom in 2016, and we are looking to open one more showroom in other city."

VBJ on Wednesday showcased the industry's first lab-grown diamond screening device for set jewellery. It has installed the machine at its showroom in Bengaluru. "We have purchased this machine 'SYNTHdetect' from the International Institute of Diamond Grading and Research (IIDGR, a subsidiary of De Beers Group) at the cost of Rs 30 lakh. We will be installing this machine at our two other showrooms. This machine differentiates natural diamonds from lab-grown diamonds," Vummidi said.

Synthetic diamonds are laboratory-developed or research centre created diamond, its chemical and physical properties look like to those of actual diamonds.

According to Transparency Market Research, these are fabricated in the research facility by utilising chemical vapor deposition (CVD) or high pressure high temperature (HPHT) forms.

The global lab-grown diamond market in the APAC is estimated at $7,496 million, and is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 7% till 2023.

Vummidi said it's difficult to differentiate between lab-grown and natural dimaonds, but these days using advanced technology we can easily identify the difference.

"For instance, if the cost of a natural diamond jewellery is Rs 10 lakh, synthetic one is just Rs 4 lakh. We want to educate our customers so that they are aware of something called synthetic diamonds and buy only natural diamonds," he added.