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Signet Jewelers (SIG) CEO Gina Drosos says there's a "rising tide" of wedding engagements on the horizon.
Signet, the world's largest seller of diamond jewelry, conducted its bespoke consumer insights research that indicates that 15% of committed couples, or approximately 2.3 million couples, plan to get engaged in the current calendar year, an increase of high single digits compared to a typical year before the pandemic, according to Drosos.
"People are really spending more on people they are closest to now. I think in part it's because they've had to narrow their focus during COVID and they spent more time with their loved ones, and the good news is that that has deepened relationships," Drosos told Yahoo Finance in a telephone interview on Thursday.
Signet's research found that over 90% of couples say their relationship is the same or better since the pandemic began.
"So that's definitely, I think, a heartwarming statistic about love," Drosos added.
The CEO pointed out that October "is always a big month" for shopping for engagement rings ahead of the holiday season.
According to Drosos, the company's consumer insights and data analytics capability implemented three years ago is "really paying off because we're getting out in front of consumer trends faster."
"It's also the cornerstone of how we differentiated our banners, which allows us to cast our net wide or bring in more new customers and grow our market share," Drosos added.
Signet is the parent company of well-known brands such as Kay Jewelers, Zales, and Jared: The Galleria of Jewelry, to name a few.
As consumers plan to shop before they pop the question, Signet has already added more fancy shapes like pear and marquise diamonds and high-quality metals like 14-karat white and yellow gold to its offerings. Drosos noted that Jared recently added platinum because of the customer requests.
The company is also seeing more customers consider lab-created diamonds to get more "bling for the buck" and a bigger center stone than they might from a natural diamond, the CEO explained.
"That's not for everybody, but it's something that we make available to our customers so that they always have a broad choice," Drosos added.
Signet reported better-than-expected second-quarter earnings results on Thursday, sending its stock as high as $88.50.
For the second quarter, Signet reported adjusted earnings per share of $3.57, handily beating analysts' estimates of $1.69. Revenue also topped forecasts, coming in at $1.79 billion, up more than $900 million compared to a year ago.