Moscow: Alrosa’s sales fell in April and for the first four months of the year as the Russian miner sold a larger volume of low-value rough diamonds than it did last year.

Rough sales declined to $310.2 million in April, the company reported Wednesday. This represented a 45% slide from a year ago, according to Thursday estimates from VTB Capital.

During the January-to-April period, revenue from rough diamonds dropped 12.5% to $1.7 billion, even as sales volume jumped 7% to 16.9 million carats.

Alrosa noted that it had started 2016 in a buoyant fashion, selling high-value rough from its stockpiles. However, in the first four months of 2017, a larger proportion of the goods sold were small, lower-priced stones, the miner explained.

“Taking into account the positive trends in the downstream segment of the diamond market, [such as] the recovery in Asian diamond-jewelry sales in the year to date, we do not rule out stronger [Alrosa] sales in May and June,” VTB commented.