The mining juggernaut completed $US540 million ($AU805 million) in sales which was a modest decrease from $US566 million ($AU843 million) in the third sales period of the past year, and a notable increase from the previous cycle.
De Beers CEO Al Cook said that positive retail results in Asia offered reason to be optimistic moving forward.
“We have continued to see good demand for our rough diamonds over the third sales cycle of the year as we move into the second quarter of 2023,” Cook said.
“Sales were in line with expectations and we continue to see some encouraging positive trends in consumer demand for diamond jewellery, not least in China where we’re beginning to see some signs of recovery in consumer confidence following the relaxation of travel restrictions.”
De Beers completed rough diamond sales in excess of $US6 billion in 2022.
Lab-created diamond surge
While there are positive trends in diamond jewellery sales, the market divide between ‘natural’ diamonds and lab-created diamonds continues to shift in favour of the latter.
In his latest diamond industry forecast, Edahn Golan of Tenoris said that in the second half of this year, lab-created diamonds can be expected to reach a major milestone.
“When will loose lab-created diamonds capture more than 50 per cent of all diamonds sold?” asks Golan.
“One way of approaching the question is to draw a linear-line forecast. Based on loose natural and lab-grown diamond buying trends from January 2020 to February 2023, this will happen in November of this year.”
Golan writes that while a linear forecast is functional, it’s also basic as it fails to account for factors such as seasonal change.
“A more effective forecasting tool is a third-degree polynomial, which does take demand fluctuations into account,” Golan explained.
“The result: By May of this year, 50 per cent of loose diamonds sold by American jewellery retailers are expected to be lab-created diamonds. More than half of consumer purchases of these goods are expected to be lab-created diamonds.”
De Beers co-chair Bruce Cleaver recently addressed this topic, suggesting that natural diamonds and lab-created diamonds can exist in harmony.
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