Tin, a strategically scarce minor metal, is relatively low in abundance within the Earth's crust, ranking 49th with an average content of only 0.004%. Compared to other base metals, tin deposits are typically smaller in scale.

In terms of resource security, the global tin reserve is estimated at approximately 6 million tonnes for 2025. Based on a projected global tin concentrate production of 290,000 tonnes in 2025, the static resource life of global tin mines is about 20.7 years, which is relatively short, making tin a typically scarce strategic mineral resource within the non-ferrous metals category.

Regarding resource distribution, tin resources are primarily concentrated in countries such as China, Indonesia, and Peru. The combined reserve share of the top five countries exceeds 75%, and the three core production regions collectively contribute over half of the global tin ore supply, indicating a highly concentrated distribution.

Supply Side: Limited New Capacity in the Short Term

Looking at the progress of new project commissioning, many are currently in relatively early stages. The construction cycle for tin mines is generally over two years, with most expected commissioning times post-2028. The short-term incremental supply mainly comes from the resumption of production at Myanmar's tin mines. However, influenced by multiple factors including drainage, explosive approvals, and the rainy season, the overall resumption progress is slow, with current production levels only at 40% to 50% of pre-ban levels.

Disruptive factors in other major producing countries continue to increase. In China, influenced by factors like declining ore grades, tin mine production has shown a downward trend in recent years, with a relatively high dependence on imports. Indonesia continues to tighten mineral export policies and crack down on illegal mining, compressing the supply elasticity of Indonesian tin ore. Tin production in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is mainly concentrated in the eastern provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, regions persistently facing security risks such as armed conflict and the Ebola epidemic, leading to significant uncertainty in production.

Demand Side: AI Sector Boosts Demand Outlook

Tin possesses characteristics such as a low melting point, good malleability, and corrosion resistance, making it widely used in electronic product soldering, tinplate, electroplating, tin chemicals, and other fields. In the downstream demand structure, solder accounts for 53%, representing the largest application area. Tin plays an irreplaceable role in the electronics industry, involving chip packaging, PCB manufacturing, and soldering of electronic components to PCBs.

Capital expenditures by cloud service providers continue to increase, driving high growth in data center demand. According to Prismark data, the projected CAGR for PCB output value in the data center sector from 2025 to 2030 is 17.2%. Furthermore, with the ongoing upgrade in computing power demand, AI server scale-up has become an industry trend. The number of GPUs per server, PCB area, and layer count are showing an upward trend, leading to a significant increase in tin consumption per unit.

The tin industry is experiencing continued tightening of supply and demand, supporting a bullish outlook for tin prices to maintain an upward trend.

Risks include macroeconomic fluctuations, slower-than-expected progress in AI applications, and faster-than-expected capacity release on the supply side.