Diamonds Industry: Early signs that 2015 will be another positive year
Early signs that 2015 will be another positive year for the diamond industry are being given by Valentine’s Day demand in the US and Chinese New Year sales in China.
De Beers strategy director Bruce Cleaver, who spoke to Creamer Media’sMining Weekly Online in a video interview following 2014’s record year for diamond jewellery sales, which hit an all-time high of $81-billion, said that all the consumer research done by De Beers continued to confirm that diamonds were the most desirable luxury product.
“Natural diamond is a beautiful product manufactured in the earth over four-billion years and delivered as the ultimate gift of love, as well as a store of value,” Cleaver said.
The enormous untapped Asian market was continuing to benefit from huge numbers of people coming into cities who have never lived in cities before.
De Beers’ latest diamond industry insight data shows the US continuing to dominate as the world’s largest diamond jewellery market, representing 46% of total 2014 diamond jewellery sales, after leaping 7% higher to $37-billion, with China at a 5%-higher $10-billion in second spot.
Including Hong Kong and Macau, the Chinese market now represents 14% of the total value of the global diamond jewellery market.
The Indian market, at 4% of the value of the global diamond jewellery market and 8% of the polished diamonds consumed, recorded sales of $3.6-billion.
In the US, the nigh-saturated engagement ring market is experiencing a surfeit of repeat purchases and, interestingly, in China the engagement ring of the West is the wedding ring of the East.
“India’s recovering quite nicely. Inflation is down and the impact of the lower oil price is positive. So for 2015, we’d again expect a reasonably positive year for diamond jewellery and, therefore, also a positive year for the producers of rough like ourselves,” the De Beers strategy director commented to Mining Weekly Online.
Source: Mining Weekly
