What is it?
A soft metal whose oxide is both transparent and electrically conductive — the invisible wiring on top of every touchscreen.
Why does it matter?
Indium tin oxide is the reason a screen can be conductive and see-through at the same time. Substitutes exist but none has matched it commercially at scale.
Deeper written sections for this material have not been published yet. Everything below is drawn straight from the source datasets and is complete.
Where it comes from in the rock
All ore minerals →These are the minerals that actually carry indium. A deposit is only an orebody if one of them is concentrated enough to pay for digging it up.
Who produces it
See it on a map →Refinery production
Refinery productionmetric tons 2025 (estimated) World total 1,100 metric tons
USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 · Refinery production of primary indium; a by-product of zinc. · source ↗
Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns.
| Country | Production | Share of world |
|---|---|---|
| China | 760.0 | 69.1% |
| Korea, Republic of | 180.0 | 16.4% |
| Japan | 65.00 | 5.9% |
| Canada | 40.00 | 3.6% |
| France | 21.00 | 1.9% |
| Belgium | 19.00 | 1.7% |
| Russia | 5.00 | 0.5% |
| Uzbekistan | 1.00 | 0.1% |
| United States | Zero | — |
| World total | 1,100 | 100% |
“Withheld” means the USGS suppressed the figure to avoid disclosing an individual company's data — it does not mean zero. Country rows do not always sum to the world total because the source rounds each figure independently and does not always break out an “other countries” line.
Price
annual average, dollars per kilogram: U.S. warehouse, free on board
Annual averagedollars per kilogram
Basis: annual average, dollars per kilogram: U.S. warehouse, free on board. Annual averages as published in USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 · source ↗. These are reference annual averages, not a live market quote.
annual average, dollars per kilogram: Rotterdam, duties unpaid
Annual averagedollars per kilogram
Basis: annual average, dollars per kilogram: Rotterdam, duties unpaid. Annual averages as published in USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 · source ↗. These are reference annual averages, not a live market quote.
What it is used for
All end markets →| End market | What it does there | Importance |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer Electronics | Transparent touchscreen electrode | Defining |
| Semiconductors | Transparent contacts and III-V devices | Important |
| Solar Power | CIGS thin film and transparent contacts | Present |
Export controls
| Country | Control | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| China | Export licensing requirement for materials and technologies | Antimony (2024), bismuth (2025), synthesized diamond (2025), gallium (2023), germanium (2023), graphite (2023), indium (2025), magnesium materials (2024), molybdenum (2025), rare earths (2025), silver (2026), tellurium (2025), tungsten (2025), and items related to lithium batteries and artificial graphite anode materials (2025). ↗ |
USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, table 4 — controls in effect as of January 2026, excluding controls since lifted.