Alrosa’s rough and polished diamond sales continued to strengthen, fuelled by robust demand for diamond jewellery and generally favourable market conditions, the company announced recently.

While sales in October, which totalled US$308 million, were still slightly behind the US$310 million raised in the same period in 2020, January to October 2021 figures showed an 89 per cent increase to US$3.58 billion from last year’s US$1.89 billion. 

Rough and polished sales in October this year reached US$293 million and US$15 million, respectively. For the 10 months of 2021, rough diamonds accounted for US$3.42 billion of total sales while polished stones generated US$155 million.

“Demand for jewellery in key markets continues to grow in double digits against the high levels of 2018–2019. Both retailers and cutters expect this upward trend to carry on through the end of the year,” revealed Evgeny Agureev, deputy CEO of Alrosa.

The company attributed tighter rough diamond supply over the past few months to lower production or about 20 per cent down from pre-pandemic levels. “As end-consumer demand for natural diamond jewellery remains high, Alrosa aims to gradually restore supply and demand balance, despite limited capacities to increase production. At the same time, we are committed to our policy of selling rough diamonds only against actual demand,” continued Agureev.