Sales of diamonds of ALROSA jump 38% to $329 mln Dec 2018

MOSCOW, Jan 14 (PRIME) -- Sales of diamonds of Russia’s ALROSA jumped by 38% on the year and 20% on the month to U.S. $328.7 million in December 2018 due to successful stock optimization, the company said in a statement late on January 11.

“In the second half of the year, buying activity in the low-priced product segment significantly deteriorated due to weakening of the global market situation and both seasonality and destocking at a number of Indian midstream companies,” the company said quoting Yevgeny Agureyev, director of the United Selling Organization of ALROSA.

“At the same time, the company was actively engaged in optimizing its stocks, which made it possible to increase sales in physical terms, despite a decline in production in 2018 by 8% to 36.6 million carats.”

The company sold rough diamonds worth $323.7 million and polished diamonds worth $5 million.

The company also raised its diamond sales by 6% on the year to $4.507 billion in monetary terms in 2018, with the sales of rough diamonds reaching $4.412 billion and sales of polished diamonds amounting to $95.3 million.

End