De Beers Still Predicting Flat Diamond Jewelry Sales for 2015

Rapaport reported that De Beers is retaining its flat outlook for 2015 diamond jewelry sales despite this week’s global turmoil in commodities and financial markets as a whole.
As quoted in the market news:

De Beers in May estimated that global diamond jewelry sales grew 3 percent to $81 billion in 2014 but said that demand in 2015 has been affected by slower growth in China and the affect the strong U.S. dollar has on sales in non-dollar denominated markets.
The diamond miner expects a positive buying trend in the U.S. during the Christmas shopping season boosted by positive economic indicators that the product tends to follow, Rowley said. He also anticipates steady sales in China during the February Chinese New Year period as the overhang of inventory in the country is slowly being depleted.

Paul Rowley, head of global sightholder sales at De Beers, commented:

One can’t ignore what’s happened on the financial markets in the past few days and weeks but we also see our product doing quite well in these times. We see diamonds in general bucking the trend a little. As much as consumer demand won’t meet our expectations from the beginning of the year, we still feel that it will be around flat on last year – which wasn’t a bad year.

Click here to read the full Rapaport report.