Sales at the De Beers diamond miner have slipped to their lowest level in nearly a decade, after the pandemic sparked global demand for jewelery and jewelery.
The world’s largest diamond producer said it had sold $ 2.7bn (£ 1.9bn) of rough diamonds by 2020, down a third on 2019 sales of more than $ 4bn.
Global demand for diamonds and jewelery fell in the spring, plunging sales and prices.
At the same time, diamond production at some of the company’s South African sites declined 27% as coronavirus restrictions hampered activity.
De Beers was also forced to cancel one of its regular sales events in Botswana after travel restrictions prevented customers from attending.
Wages at De Beers, which has been part of the major Anglo-American mining group since 2012, fell in the first half of the year to just $ 2m, down from $ 518m for the same period in 2019.
The company warned in July that they may have to cut jobs as they looked to review their operations.
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However, sales have improved in the last quarter and De Beers said it had sold $ 440m worth of rough diamonds in December, during the last year of the year, which was slightly higher than at the same time last year.
Its boss, Bruce Cleaver, said Christmas demand for diamond jewelry in markets such as China and the U.S. was raising demand for polished diamonds, which supported the company’s sale of rough diamonds.
However, Cleaver warned that the continuing pandemic posed a threat to the diamond industry ‘s recovery for the rest of this year, and by 2021.