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Lexical competition has been shown to exert an inhibitory influence on phonemic mergers in phonetic evolution. This study investigates the merging process of Cantonese tone pairs, examining the lexical competition effect from an individual perspective. Results reveal that lexical competition influences tone production even in speakers without clear mergers, helping maintain tonal contrasts while subtly altering pitch distributions, which may signal future change. For participants merging only one tone pair, the effect of lexical competition varies: it consistently inhibits merging for the T4 (21)-T6 (22) pair, but for the T3 (33)-T6 (22) pair, its influence manifests in three distinct patterns-no effect, inhibition, or promotion of merging. Conversely, in participants merging all three tones, lexical competition shows minimal impact. This research elucidates the diverse mechanisms through which lexical competition shapes tone-merging processes.