Alrosa diamond sales up 2% in October to $264.4 mln
MOSCOW. Nov 8 (Interfax) - Alrosa sold $264.4 million in rough and polished diamonds in October, up 2% compared to September sales of $258.7 million, the company said in a statement.
This is the third consecutive month of growth after negative trends in April-July.
Sales were up 9% year-on-year, from $242.8 million in September 2018. This was prompted by a low base effect - a year ago in October, sales fell sharply by 28%, reflecting reduced demand in the segment of inexpensive small diamonds.
Rough diamond sales came to $253.9 million and polished diamond sales to $10.4 million in October.
Overall rough and polished diamond sales fell 31% to $2.687 billion in 10M 2019, from $3.905 billion in the same period last year. This included $2.639 billion in rough and $47.2 million in polished diamonds.
"In 9M 2019, the dominant forces in the rough and polished diamond market included the oversupply of polished diamonds and challenging situation in India's financial sector. As major producers have reduced diamond supply by a quarter since the beginning of the year and Indian cutters begin to see the overstock gradually clearing, the supply and demand in the diamond pipeline seem to be heading towards balance, even though it would be premature to talk about reaching a complete balance in the near future. Since early August 2019, the prices and demand have somewhat stabilized resulting in three consecutive months of sales growth, with total sales adding 7%, 42% and 2% m-o-m in August, September and October, respectively," said Evgeny Agureev, Deputy CEO of Alrosa.