With the recovery of the semiconductor industry, South Korea’s semiconductor exports are rapidly increasing, with memory semiconductors accounting for a larger proportion of the total semiconductor exports.
According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy, S. Korea’s memory semiconductor exports amounted to $8.8 billion in June, accounting for 65.8% of total semiconductor exports. This is the highest proportion in two years since Dec. 2021 (65.8%).
As a leading nation in memory semiconductors, South Korea maintained a steady level of over 60% for memory semiconductors in its total semiconductor exports from 2017 to 2021. In 2018, this figure even reached 74.2%.
However, as Samsung Electronics and other Korean companies expanded their business into the system semiconductor sector, including foundry (contract semiconductor manufacturing), the proportion of memory semiconductors in total semiconductor exports relatively decreased, while the share of non-memory semiconductors began to increase.
In 2022, the export proportions of memory and non-memory semiconductors were 57.1% and 42.9%, respectively, and last year they were 52.1% and 47.9%, respectively.
The recent increase in the proportion of memory semiconductors in S. Korea’s semiconductor exports is due to a faster recovery in memory semiconductor sales. In contrast, the growth in non-memory semiconductor exports, which are mainly produced through foundry services, has been relatively slower.
In June, S. Korea’s total semiconductor exports jumped by 50.9% compared to the previous month, reaching a record $13.42 billion. This increase was largely driven by the surge in demand for artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Also, exports of memory semiconductors, including High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), skyrocketed by 85% to $8.8 billion. Meanwhile, exports of system semiconductors grew by 9% to $4.1 billion.
The rapid recovery in memory exports is supported by both market demand recovery and higher sales of high-value memory products, as well as rising product prices.
With the expansion of the AI market, sales of high-value memory products like HBM have increased, and the average selling prices (ASP) of DRAM and NAND have also risen. According to the market research firm TrendForce, the prices of DRAM and NAND in the second quarter of this year increased by 13-18% and 15-20%, respectively.
The swift recovery in memory exports is leading to significant performance improvements for major domestic semiconductor companies such as Samsung. On July. 5, Samsung Electronics announced an operating profit of $7.5 billion in the second quarter, exceeding market expectations.
