De Beers is sitting on a $2 billion pile of diamonds as demand slumps — ‘It’s been a bad year’

• Diamond giant De Beers has seen its stockpile reach $2 billion, the biggest since the 2008 financial crisis, according to the Financial Times. "It’s been a bad year for rough diamond sales."

Waning demand for natural diamonds has helped lift De Beers's inventory to $2 billion, the most since the 2008 financial crash, according to the Financial Times.

In fact, the value of the diamond giant's stockpile has been stuck around $2 billion for much of 2024, the report said.

"It's been a bad year for rough diamond sales," CEO Al Cook told the FT.

De Beers didn't immediately respond to a query for additional details on its inventory, including how much it was in prior years.

The company has been grappling with multiple headwinds in recent years. China's slumping economy has been a major drag on the luxury sector, including diamonds. Gen Z's preference for less expensive lab-grown diamonds has hit demand for natural stones. And the knock-on effects of COVID-19 were still reverberating as marriages only returned to pre-pandemic levels earlier this year.

For the first half of 2024, De Beers's sales were down about 20% compared to the same time a year ago to $2.2 billion.

Meanwhile, parent company Anglo American announced plans earlier this year to spin off the business either through a sale or an initial public offering.

The increased stockpile comes as De Beers has doubled down on its retail segment, abandoned its own foray into lab-grown diamonds, cut production from diamond mines, launched a marketing campaign this fall, and slashed prices.

CEO Cook is upbeat about a turnaround.

"As we go independent, we have the freedom to focus on marketing as hard as we focused on mining," he told the FT. "This feels to me like the right time to be driving marketing and getting behind our brands and retail, even as we cut the capital and the spend on the mining side."

But a recent report from McKinsey gave a gloomier assessment and raised the possibility that lab-grown diamonds could take over, relegating the rest of the market to niche segments.

Alternatively, prices for lab-grown diamonds could fall so much that they become fashion accessories and don't compete with natural rivals.

"Related to this point, assuming consumers cannot tell the difference between natural stones and LGDs, all diamonds could simply go out of fashion, lose their appeal, and are no longer seen as a must-have for engagement rings," the report warned.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com