Russian miner Alrosa has reported a 12.5% decline in rough diamond sales in value terms in the first four months of the year, compared to the corresponding period in 2016. According to IDEX Online, Alrosa’s sales between January and April totaled $1.7 billion.
In volume terms, Alrosa sold 16.9 million carats of rough and polished diamonds – a 7% rise year-on-year. In April, the miner raked in $310.2 million from the sale of rough diamonds, while polished diamond sales for the month totaled $7.6 million.
“The decline in sales in value terms compared to the same period last year is primarily caused by a high base of the first months of 2016, when the market started to recover from a challenging 2015 and a lot of expensive diamonds were sold from previously accumulated stocks”, said ALrosa Vice President Yury Okoemov. He added that “The sales assortment structure has changed dramatically – in the first four months of 2017 the share of small-size, inexpensive rough diamonds was significantly higher than early in 2016. In general, this period can be described as a period of active restocking in the midstream against emerging recovery of growth in Chinese jewelry retail sales”.
