Silver Hit Record Highs in 2025: Supply, Demand, and the Road Ahead

Silver hits record highs, often nicknamed the ‘Devil’s metal’ because of its sharp price swings, has outperformed gold in 2025, climbing about 71% compared with gold’s 54%. Analysts say it still has further to run, even as supply remains tight.

Silver’s growth has moved in step with gold, whose price has seen its own rally with the price surging above $4,000 an ounce this year.

In mid-October, silver reached an all-time high of $54.47 per troy ounce, a 71% increase from a year earlier. Though some of the gains have since eased, prices are once again trending upward, despite low supply levels.

In late November, silver broke past $54.50 and briefly hit a new record of about $58 per ounce, driven by tight supply, strong industrial demand, and increased investment flows amid a monetary environment increasingly supportive of hard assets.

Paul Syms, head of EMEA ETF Fixed Income and commodity product management at Invesco, told CNBC that delivery demand was so high that silver had to be transported by plane rather than on cargo ships.

He added that while they had seen the price spike, it had come down slightly, but that in the longer term, a different dynamic could keep silver at reasonably high prices and potentially allow it to continue rising for some time.

Silver Hit Record Highs: A Rare Price Peak

October was only the third major silver price peak in the past 50 years. Earlier highs occurred in January 1980, when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the market by buying up a third of the global supply. The  U.S. debt ceiling crisis in 2011 made investors turn to silver and gold as safe haven assets.

Silver hits record highs in a different kind of boom

The precious metal boom of 2025 was different from other investment waves because of a combination of low supply and strong demand from India, as well as industrial needs and tariffs.

Following Liberation Day, gold prices jumped while silver dipped slightly, pushing the gold-silver ratio above 100. The gold-silver ratio measures how many ounces of silver are required to buy one ounce of gold. When the ratio is low, gold is considered cheap relative to silver; when it is high, silver is seen as undervalued and likely to rise. In April, the ratio reached a historic high.

Rhona O’Connell, head of market analysis EMEA and Asia at Stone X said: “The risk managers in financial and industrial entities did not want to let any metal go out of the States for fear that it might come back in at 35% higher for example.”

India’s seasonal demand surge

By autumn, silver demand had reached its seasonal peak, especially with the end of India’s monsoon and harvest seasons.

O’Connell said that farmers typically turn to gold and silver as their preferred form of savings when the harvest is in.

India is the world’s largest consumer of silver, using around 4,000 metric tons every year, mainly for jewellery, utensils and ornaments.

This autumn’s, silver’s popularity was further boosted by Diwali, the five-day ‘Festival of Lights’ celebrating prosperity and good fortune – which is also India’s biggest public holiday.

Silver hits record highs amid a supply crunch

Although gold remains a traditional favourite, this year silver, an affordable investment option in a country where approximately 55% of people rely on agriculture for their livelihoods, outshone other metals.

On 17 October, silver prices in India rose to a record 170,415 rupees per kilogram, up 85% since January 2025.

However, India relies on imports for about 80% of its silver needs. While the UAE and China are playing an increasingly important role in meeting that demand, the U.K. has long been India’s largest silver supplier.

At the same time, London’s vaults have been depleting rapidly over the past few years. In June 2022, the London Bullion Market Association held 31,023 metric tons of silver. But by March 2025, stocks had fallen by roughly a third to 22,126 metric tons, reaching the lowest level in years.

“What isn’t necessarily so visible to people is what’s happening in the vaults,” said O’Connell. “And that had reached a point where there was basically there was no available metal left in London.”

In October, the supply squeeze grew so severe that traders had to pay much higher borrowing costs, known as lease rates, to close their positions.

“At one stage, to borrow overnight was costing 200% on an annualized basis, so a lot of people were very stressed to put it mildly,” said O’Connell.

A decade of declining output

Supply is a constant challenge for silver, as it is for many other precious and rare metals. According to the Silver Institute’s 2025′s World Silver Survey, global mine production has been declining for the past decade, with the sharpest drops in Central and South America.

O’Connell noted that over the past twelve months, the market’s underlying surplus had started to turn into a deficit for three reasons: the rapid electrification of the vehicle fleet, the growing influence of artificial intelligence, and rising demand from photovoltaics.

Industrial demand pushes prices higher

“At the moment, a standard electric vehicle has about 25 grams of silver, maybe the larger EVs have 50 grams of silver as part of their components,” said Syms.

“If we move into these solid-state silver batteries, each electric vehicle might require a kilo or more of silver,” he added.

Tight supply, combined with macroeconomic tailwinds, including potential rate cuts, persistent inflation, and evolving U.S. policies on critical minerals—continues to boost silver’s value and investment demand.

With its high thermal conductivity and a higher electrical conductivity than other metals, as well as increasing demand for EVs, AI and renewables, silver’s value is likely to keep shining.

“Silver crosses that bridge between precious and industrial metals, and with the way technology is going—batteries, solar panels—it has some great use cases as we move into a more electrified world,” said Syms. By the end of 2025, silver will have gained approximately 94%, far outpacing gold’s 60% rise.

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