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Tin Market Production Might Not Keep Up With Growing Demand in Consumer Electronics, reports TMR
The top three producers of tin – Yunnan Tin Group Company Limited, Malaysia Smelting Corporation, and PT Timah (Perseo) Tbk – held about 56.9% of the revenue in 2014, leaving the rest as a highly fragmented competitive landscape filled with regional players with no globally prominent presence.
According to Transparency Market Research, Yunnan Tin Group Company Ltd. was the largest company in 2014, in terms of revenue share. In the same year, Malaysia Smelting Corporation was the second-largest tin producer.
TMR’s study notes that most companies within the fragmented market keep their focus on improving their manufacturing capacities and securing new business projects within the new and emerging
tin markets.
Demand for Consumer Electronics and Food Packaging Drives Global Tin Production
The two largest drivers for tin production rates are the rapidly increasing demands from consumer electronics and packaged foods. Tin is a core material used in most of the consumer electronic goods we see today. About half the overall annual tin consumption goes into soldering.
Another major chunk of the demand originates from the food and beverages industry. With the growth of economy in emerging nations, the demand for packaged food is increasing rapidly. Tin being one of the most preferred metallic food-grade packaging materials, is expected to be used in increasing amounts over the coming years.
Raw Material Depletion Expected to Create Significant Hurdles
“While the demand for tin is increasing at a consistently high pace, thanks to the economic and industrial developments in APAC and LATAM, tin production might not match the demand that is projected for the near future,” states a TMR analyst. “Most of the major mines in Brazil and Peru are being depleted, creating a scenario where severe lack of tin production could cripple the industry.”
At the same time, the other major production projects that are slated to be released soon do not seem to be arriving soon enough to top off the fall in supply. Most of these projects are expected to be started by 2024, with a few others to be initiated between 2016 and 2017.
“Minsur S.A. had stated in November 2015 that their San Rafael, Peru project has had a 15% shortfall in Q3 2015, than for the same quarter in the previous year. The mine is stipulated to run only till 2017,” the analyst added. “Additionally, one of the global giants of tin production, Indonesia, has started strengthening its export laws for tin in order to barricade tin smuggling and rapid environmental degradation.”
As a result, we can see that the severity of tin supply shortfall is only expected to increase in severity over the coming years. Future projects might meet market demands later, but for now, the growing demand might not be consistent with the reducing supply.
Consumer Electronics Demand to Drive Tin Market to US$7.3 bn by 2023
The rapid expansion of the consumer electronics industry will continue to push the demand for tin higher. The global tin manufacture rate is also growing due to the increasing demand from the food and beverages industry for packaging purposes. With major contributions from these two factors, the global in market is expected to be expanding at a CAGR of 3.4% between 2015 and 2023, in terms of revenue. It was valued around US$7.4 bn in 2014 and after a brief period of downturn, is expected to rise up to US$7.29 bn by the end of 2023.
