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The invasion of Russian forces into the neighboring country of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and the furious international reaction it has evoked, including the imposition of severe economic sanctions and the closing of European airspace to Russian airlines, has thrust the diamond industry into a state of confusion.
Anglo American, majority shareholder in the De Beers Group of companies, has released the results of its subsidiary in 2021, noting that total revenue increased significantly to $5.6 billion, up from $3.4 billion in COVID-stricken 2020, with rough diamond sales rising to $4.9 billion, up from the $2.8 billion a year earlier.
A lawsuit is catching the attention of some in the diamond sector, because it signals what some believe is could be the industry’s next reputational challenge. Involved is a complaint by residents of Koidu, a mining area in Sierra Leone’s diamond-rich Kono district, in the northeast of the country. They are are suing the operators of a local diamond mine who they claim has polluted the environment.
An exceptional fancy colored diamond called the De Beers Cullinan Blue is set to be auctioned at a standalone, single-lot sale at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong on April 27, 2022, and in all likelihood will garner one of the highest prices ever paid for a gemstone at a public sale. Weighing 15.1 carats, it is the largest internally flawless step cut vivid blue diamond GIA has ever graded.
With most countries’ governments relaxing the stringent COVID restrictions they had imposed in 2020, in 2021 the personal luxury and diamond jewelry markets experienced decade-high growth, respectively increasing in size by 35 percent and 29 percent, according to the diamond report published this monrth by Bain & Company and the Antwerp World Diamond Center (AWDC). Such was the case even with the outbreak of coronavirus variants, where consumer optimism was propped up by the vaccination campaigns in major diamond-consuming regions.
Following a rollercoaster 2020, during which the diamond industry proved its resiliency, a “brilliant recovery” was staged in 2021, with every sector of the industry performing well, noted Bain & Company and the Antwerp World Diamond Center, in the 11th of their annual reports on the diamond industry. The market is expected to remain strong through the first half of 2022, the research paper added.
China’s luxury product market is on track to become the world’s largest by 2025, moving the United States out of first place, states a new report issued by Bain & Company, authored by two analysts Bruno Lannes and Weiwei Xing. Globally, mainland China’s share of the luxury market grew from about 20 percent in 2020 to approximately 21 percent in 2021.
In a press release issue on February 1, the Rapaport Group reported that its RapNet Diamond Index for 1-carat polished diamonds had risen 6.9 percent during January 2022, and it was up 26.3 percent year on year as of February 1. It was not the only sign of a robust market.
After a holiday season that grew 14.1 percent over 2020 to $886.7 billion, the U.S. retail sector is now looking toward a Valentine’s Day spending, which the National Retail Federation forecast will reach $23.9 billion this year, up from $21.8 billion in 2021.
On January 26, a terse announcement was issued by the governments of Thailand and Saudi Arabia confirming that the two countries would be restoring full diplomatic relations. It brought to an end what had become known as the Blue Diamond Affair, which had resulted in the estrangement between the two nations 33 years ago.
With the figures coming in fast and furious, it now becoming patently obvious that, despite the ravages of a global pandemic, 2021 will be remembered as on the most successful years in recent memory for the diamond and jewelry sectors. This is apparent across the board, or as it described in the industry, from mine to market.
The metaverse is a virtual space on the Internet into which you may enter, which is persistent, immersive and three-dimensional. Once inside it, you will feel that you’ve been removed from the physical world. You will be able to play, work, seemingly travel, interact with others and buy products, which may be virtual or real.
Nothing about up Sotheby’s scheduled in several weeks’ time conforms to the description of ordinary. For one, only one item is on offer, and it is a huge polished black diamond. What’s more, the sale will be conducted online and cryptocurrency will be accepted as payment. The diamond is a 555.55-carat black diamond called “The Enigma.”
Still cut off from much of the world because of its government’s “no-COVID infections” policy, China’s economy nonetheless appears no worse for wear, with its retail sector even appearing to have returned to the double-digit growth that typified it more than five years ago.
By most accounts, luxury brands head into 2022 in better shape that they could have, or even should have hoped. The COVID pandemic, which it one stage seemed to threaten the sale of high-end, non-essential products, such as jewelry, raised anxiety levels in 2020, but not in 2021.
Some had confidently predicted that 2022 would be when that we put the coronavirus in the rearview mirror, but that still may be a case of wishful thinking. But the truth is that the two years of living in the shadow of COVID-19 have had a number of macro-economic effects that ultimately will affect all business sectors.
Israel’s diamond industry recovered strongly in 2021, following an extremely tough 2020, when weighed down by the crisis brought on the by the COVID-19 pandemic, exports and imports had crashed. Indeed, reported the Diamond Controller at Israel’s Ministry of Economy and Industry, figures registered over the past 12 months surpassed not only those from one year previously, but also those reported in 2019, the year before the onset of the crisis.
As the curtains come down 2021 and 2022 stands waiting in the wings, the world appears set to begin its third year in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic. The question is – how well have we learned to live with it? Looking at the diamond industry, it’s a fair to say that, on balance, it’s managing to do so pretty well
While end-of-the-year jewelry sales appear to be strong in the major consumer centers, De Beers has reported that global sightholder sales and auction for the tenth and final sales cycle of 2021 totaled $332 million, 27 percent down on the $452 million reported for the final sales cycle of 2020.
With the holiday season drawing to a close and the end-of-year shopping season soon to be in the rear mirror, it may be time to change gears and consider the world’s most popular gemstone from a different perspective. For while the diamond primarily fascinates jewelry consumers, it’s a mineral of interest to many others, and particularly those in the scientific community, for a variety of reasons.
Second-hand, or even third and fourth-hand diamond jewelry could represent a treasure trove over coming years suggests a recently published report released by McKinsey & Company, which has estimated that the resale luxury market already was worth between $25 billion and $30 billion in 2020, and is likely to grow at an annual rate of between 10 percent and 15 percent over the coming decade.
Fancy colored diamonds have perennially stolen the thunder at major jewelry auction in recent years, but generally in more limited range of colors – most often pinks and blue stones. Not so at Christie’s on December 8 in New York, where the top lot was a yellow diamond, which pulled in $2.85 million, at the upper end of its pre-sale estimate of between $2 million and $3 million.
Benny Meirov, an owner and founder of MID House of Diamonds, has been named by the Israel Diamond Manufacturers Association as a 2021 Israel Diamond Industry Dignitary Award recipient, They are granted to worthy individuals in recognition of their contribution to the development of the diamond sector in Israel, and are considered to be the highest honor that can be bestowed by the industry on its own members.
When it shut down the massive Argyle mine in Western Australia toward the end of 2021, many in the industry predicted that Rio Tinto, the Anglo-Australian multinational that is the world’s second-largest metals and mining corporation behind BHP, was getting out of the diamond business. But a number of developments toward the end of the year would suggest otherwise.
While there is a fair deal of nervousness about the potential impact of COVID’s new Omichron variant, research just published by The Knot, a leading all-in-one wedding-planning resource, reveals that activity in the matrimonial sector is returning to normal, after a devastating 2020 and a very tentative first half in 2021.