Alrosa’s sales fell 24% year on year to $258.7 million in September, amid continued market weakness.
However, the total was the highest in four months, and reflected a noticeable recovery in the small-stone sector, the Russian miner said last week.
“It is partly due to the traditional autumn market revival after the holiday period, and a slight increase in demand from Indian cutters and polishers ahead of the Diwali festival,” said Alrosa deputy CEO Evgeny Agureev. “The most noticeable increase [was] sales of small-sized rough diamonds.”
Rough-diamond sales decreased 23% to $256.5 million for the month, while polished revenue plunged 69% to $2.2 million.
Alrosa’s sales fell 34% to $2.42 billion in the first nine months of the year. Revenue from rough stones dropped 34% to $2.39 billion for the period, while polished-diamond sales slid 50% to $36.8 million.
However, while sales have seen a slight boost, Alrosa thinks a full recovery will take longer.
“The market is still facing low demand for rough diamonds, though there has been a gradual recovery for some categories of diamonds,” Agureev added. “We still believe it will take some time to get a balance between supply and demand.”
Agureev, who has been the director of Alrosa’s United Selling Organization (USO) since 2017, was promoted to deputy CEO of the group last week.
“Given the difficult conditions in the global diamond market today, Evgeny will continue to improve the efficiency of the entire supply chain of the company and look for new approaches to stimulate rough-diamond sales, as well as to increase the level of interaction with the company’s customers and expand the customer base,” noted Alrosa CEO Sergey Ivanov.
Source: DCLA