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De Beers Strategy And Shakeups

  • Avi Krawitz
  • Jun 9
  • 2 min read

De Beers hosted its big, beautiful breakfast on Friday presenting a lot of information about its strategy and the market, but two main themes stood out: marketing and the De Beers value proposition.

 

CEO Al Cook gave an update on the company’s Origins strategy, first revealed at last year’s JCK show, noting management hit all their targets — including $100 million in cost cuts, and he revealed that another $30 million is now on the chopping block.

Some of the milestones in the past year included De Beers’ deal signed with Botswana. Shutting down the Lightbox synthetics brand and refocusing on synthetics for tech. De Beers exploration is now centralized in Angola. Its traceability program Tracr now offers single country of origin data, and it launched its Diamond Proof authentication machines for retailers.”

 

Paul Rowley, De Beers VP of Trading, gave an update on the market, with an estimate that global diamond jewelry sales dropped from $80.6 billion in 2023 to $77.5 billion in 2024 — mostly from China’s slowdown and cannibalization from synthetics.

 

China’s share of global natural diamond jewelry sales fell from 16% at its peak to around 5% currently.

 

On the marketing side, De Beers officially launched Origin, its polished diamond brand — helping retailers tell the full diamond journey, powered by Tracr.

 

De Beers CEO Al Cook
De Beers CEO Al Cook

They also introduced Ombré Desert Diamonds — a new beacon jewelry concept inspired by warm desert tones. Think whites, champagnes, ambers. The idea, like the three-stone or eternity ring which De Beers did in the past, is to start a trend for others to build on and stimulate demand for these types of diamonds.

 

Meanwhile, Botswana President Duma Boko opened the ‘House of Botswana’ and hosted a fireside chat with members of the industry. His key message was that Botswana is open for investment.

 

It seems there were two goals for the Botswana delegation from this trip, attract investment and here I’m assuming, turn US retailers into Botswana diamond ambassadors.

 

There’s more to unpack, both on the Botswana story and certainly on all that De Beers is doing, particularly in the context of its pending sale. For now, De Beers is seemingly setting the stage to shore up value in an increasingly difficult market environment.

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