Alrosa Q3 Diamond Sales Plummet 38% to $753 Million

(IDEX Online News) – Alrosa suffered a 38-percent plunge in diamond sales in the third quarter, with sales diving to 23.27 billion rubles ($752.8 million), the Russian diamond firm announced today (Tuesday).

Overall profit for the quarter fell 6.9 percent to $278.9 million (8.62 billion rubles).

A global weakness in diamond demand has affected Alrosa and has hurt sales all along the diamond and jewelry pipeline. This weakness was most apparent in the second and third quarters of the year.

In the first nine months of 2012, sales declined 4.4 percent to $3.03 billion.

Alrosa’s overall sales for the entire group – including diamonds, transportation, oil, gas, iron ore and electricity – fell 32.5 percent to $898.9 million (27.79 billion rubles). ,

Gross profits plunged 43.9 percent to 14.23 billion rubles ($460.3 million).

On September 30, at the end of the third quarter, Alrosa held diamond inventories worth $89.8 million.