• By Tsaone Segaetsho
De Beers’ largest consumer, China, is said to have been tightening its
belt on buying luxury or jewellery amidst the sluggish global economic
landscape, which is reflected in the diamond giant’s recently released
rough diamond sales on Wednesday.
However, mining experts have observed that the trend showing gloomy
diamond sales is due to mainland China’s recent preference for spending
on plain gold jewellery instead of diamonds.
The CEO of De Beers, Al Cook, said on Wednesday: “Many diamond
businesses continue to take a cautious approach to purchasing amidst the
uncertain economic landscape and slow pace of growth in China. However,
we saw a further uptick in our rough diamond sales in our third sales
cycle, ahead of what is usually a slower period for rough diamond demand
in the second quarter of the year.”
Yields at De Beers’ third rough sales cycle were sluggish compared to
last year’s. However, signs of improvement were evident in the current
reports, as reiterated by Cook.
According to experts, April is generally a quiet period for buying rough
diamonds due to a post-holiday restocking at the beginning of the year.
However, there is a trend showing a rise from sight to sight since the
first sight of the year in January.
While De Beers’ sales were $445 million in the first month’s sales,
reported Wednesday, this figure was a far cry from the same period in
2023, down by 18 percent. Some optimism could be drawn from the 3
percent slight improvement to the current $445 million figure, which was
also 19 percent higher than January 2024’s opening cycle.
Apart from shifting preferences towards diamonds, China has also been
dogged by economic uncertainty as it slowly recovers from post-COVID
impacts, which has affected the 2024 sales cycles. A day before De
Beers’ report on rough diamonds, another diamond giant, Petra Diamonds,
announced the results of its third diamond sales tender, registering
stable prices compared to previous cycles.
“Average like-for-like prices for the first five tenders of the
financial year 2024 were down by 8.5 percent year-to-date compared to
the equivalent period in financial year 2023. However, pricing
assumptions for the remainder of the year remain unchanged,” said Petra
CEO, Richard Duffy.
