Major Developments Major Developments by Calendar Year

U.S. polished diamond imports at the time of April 2009 declined 47 percent to $794.2 million. Polished diamond exports descended to 46 percent to $589.8 million. Final polished imports, the magnitude to which imports topped exports, for the U.S. during April reduced to 52 percent to $204.4 million.

Rough imports dropped 64 percent to $20.6 million, and rough exports were reduced 40 percent to $12 million. Final rough imports dropped 76 percent to $8.6 million. The U.S. net diamond inventory, calculating total imports less than total exports, dropped 54 percent to $213 million in April.

The numbers also revealed identical declines, with polished imports declining by 51 percent to $3.2 billion, and polished exports reducing 44 percent to $2.6 billion. Net polished imports for the period from January through April in the U.S. were declining 68 percent to $575.8 million. Rough imports for that period dropped 77 percent to $60 million and rough exports were down 70 percent to $43.4 million. For net rough imports of $16.6 million, a decline of 86 percent was noticed from 2008. Till April 2009, the net diamond inventory dropped 69 percent to $592.4 million.

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The total average ticket for anniversary jewelry is nearly $1,200. But the diamond jewelry sales worth $3,000 and above creates about half of total revenues from anniversary diamond jewelry. Thus, the opportunity for jewelers is to tap the market for higher ticket anniversary jewelry.

Diamond jewelry has a market share of 55% of total jewelery sales in the US market (source: Diamond Information Centre). Nearly 50% of worldwide diamond jewelery sales are generated in the US according to the Jewelry Industry Research Institute. Diamond jewelry had a share of 75% of the US division’s retail sales in fiscal 2009, which is same as that of previous years.

Retail jewelers announced that diamond jewelry sales were exceptionally weak during 2008 holiday selling season. According to preliminary data, it seems that diamond jewelry sales were reduced by 20-25 percent in the November-December period. For the complete year, the number of diamond jewelry sales were reduced by 8-9 percent in the U.S. Market. This also includes both specialty jewelers and other merchants who are selling diamond jewelry.

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