Russian diamond producer Alrosa on Thursday announced strong rough and polished diamond sales, which not only shot past the Covid-hit 2020 levels, but also came in substantially higher than sales in pre-pandemic 2019.
Alrosa reported total sales of $4.17-billion, including rough diamond sales of $3.98-billion and polished sales of $192-million, for 2021.
This translates to 50% growth compared with 2020 levels and 21% compared with 2019, deputy CEO Evgeny Agureev said in a statement.
“This was driven by recovering demand for diamond jewellery in the key consumer markets in North America and Asia,” he said.
December rough and polished diamond sales came to $254-million, including $241-million of rough diamond sales and $12-million of polished.
“Amid strong demand, December sales dynamics result from the high base effect of December 2020, when sales primarily came from our stocks, as well as from the trading session shift towards the end of the month with sales partly moving to January 2022.”
Agureev noted that Alrosa’s inventories remained “at rock bottom since mid-2021”.
“We are generally positive about future demand for rough diamonds, given low stocks in the diamond pipeline and continued high demand from jewellery consumers,” he added.