De Beers’ sightholders met in Botswana’s capital, Gaborone last Tuesday for an annual cocktail of the diamond buyers.
The buyers had time to listen to the diamond group chief executive Philippe Mellier who said that while it was too early to provide a definitive analysis, initial indications were that Forevermark was not the only growth story last year.
Forevermark was a diamond brand from the De Beers group, which has a history of diamond expertise spanning more than 125 years.
Mellier said it appeared 2014 had delivered global growth in consumer demand for diamond jewellery over the previous year.
He said this was a notable achievement considering that 2013 was a record year for diamond jewellery consumption.
“With regards to the end of year season, most commentators agree that the largest market for diamond jewellery sales, the US, experienced a decent level of growth of around 3-4 percent,” said Mellier.
“And while there have been mixed reports relating to performance in the increasingly important markets of India and China, some retailers have still shown healthy growth in these markets.”
Mellier said whatever the final analysis of performance over the end of year season shows, continued growth in consumer demand implied that they should still see a desire from retailers to restock inventories as the year progresses.
He, however, said that they recognised that there may be something of a delay in this restocking demand as a result of a number of structural issues.
“…we have therefore offered Sightholders with an additional deferral option at this week’s Sight. This will give you the opportunity to re-phase your supply from De Beers in the first quarter of the year,” said Mellier.
“But once this short-term dynamic has been resolved, we remain optimistic for the opportunities in the year ahead. “
He said early forecasts from leading economic analysts predicted that global economic growth in 2015 would outpace the rate of growth seen over last three years.
One of the star performers in the global economy was expected to be the US, which was good news for diamonds as this is the major destination for diamond jewellery sales, said Mellier.
“It is also noteworthy that the development profile of the consumer landscape in India means that the diamond industry should see direct benefit as more consumers enter the middle class,” he said.
“And this also holds true for China. While China may be seeing a deceleration in its growth rate, the reduction of the pace of growth should not be sharp and there is expectation that the slowdown will be effectively managed.”
Ladies and gentlemen, we believe the future of the diamond dream is absolute.
We believe that the industry is approaching one of the greatest periods of opportunity in living memory and we are committing to major investments across the pipeline so that we can unlock the full value presented by the industry’s outstanding fundamentals.
We have celebrated some amazing anniversaries in recent years – 125 years of De Beers, 45 years of Debswana and 20 years of Namdeb. But despite our pride at this history, if we all choose to invest in long-term growth then it will be the diamond industry’s future that becomes the real success story.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
