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De Beers said there were signs of a pick up in US diamond demand before Christmas, while India has overtaken China to become the second-biggest market.
The industry has been hammered by a collapse in diamond demand from China and the increasing penetration of lab grown stones. At its final sale of last year, De Beers cut diamond prices by more than 10 percent across the board as the world’s biggest producer abandoned attempts to put a floor under the slumping market.
In November and December, demand in the US for diamond jewellery rose about 8 percent year on year, De Beers chief executive officer Al Cook said in an interview with Bloomberg television at the Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town. “There are encouraging signals,” he said.
Anglo American Plc CEO Duncan Wanblad said on Monday that the mining giant won’t let its struggling De Beers diamond business be a drag on its restructuring. Wanblad said the company intended to exit De Beers by the end of this year, but given the state of the market that could spill over into 2026.
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The diamond industry has been struck by one of its deepest and most prolonged slumps in decades. What started as a post-pandemic slowdown has spiraled as inflation hit customer purchases, before a collapse in China’s luxury market further eroded demand. Man-made diamonds have also continued to undermine prices.
The Chinese diamond market has stabilised, but any recovery will take time, Cook said. However, the Indian market is growing at double-digit rates, he added.
“But we see growth, the regrowth of Chinese demand being a longer-term story,” the CEO said. “The good news is that India has taken over where China was.”
By Arijit Ghosh and Jennifer Zabasajja
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Exclusive: Inside De Beers’ About-Face on Lab-Grown Diamonds
This week, the gemstone giant said it would stop making lab-grown diamonds for jewellery to focus on marketing the “unique attributes” of natural stones. Stakes are high after sales plummeted in 2023, and as owner Anglo-American explores a sale or spin-off.
