Tin Hit a Record Price Despite a Deceptively Low Concentration Number
Tin's mine-supply HHI sits near the unconcentrated threshold, even though its top two producers hold 46% combined, a real lesson in how the index works.
Tin reached a record price in 2025, roughly $33,069 per tonne, yet its computed concentration index tells a more nuanced story than “record price means extreme concentration” would suggest.
Running the index on tin’s real 2024 shares (China roughly 25%, Indonesia 21%, then Peru, Brazil, DR Congo, Bolivia, Myanmar, Australia, and Vietnam each contributing meaningfully) gives an HHI of roughly 1,474, just below the 1,500 threshold below which a market counts as genuinely unconcentrated. This is a real, useful illustration of how the index works: two large producers holding 46% combined still produces a moderate HHI when the remaining half of the market is itself reasonably well spread across several countries, rather than sitting in one additional large bloc.
Why the price still spiked
Tin’s small absolute market size, covered on this material’s supply chain page, means even a moderate HHI cannot prevent sharp price moves when a specific disruption hits a major producer, Indonesian export policy changes and Myanmar mine suspensions have both triggered real, documented price spikes despite the market’s only moderate textbook concentration score.
Sources: price history and production shares reference this project’s own published production and price data (USGS, ITRI); HHI is computed directly from that data; the 1,500 and 2,500 HHI thresholds are the US Department of Justice/FTC Horizontal Merger Guidelines convention.