South Korea’s Ministry of Science and Technology announced its February ICT export statistics today. It is reported that South Korea’s ICT (information and communication technology) exports last month were only 12.82 billion U.S. dollars (about 87.945 billion CNY), a year-on-year decrease of 32.0%. This is the eighth consecutive month of continuous decline in ICT exports. .
By item, exports of semiconductors fell 41.5 percent, displays fell 42.2 percent, and exports of computers and peripheral equipment fell 58.6 percent. In terms of regions, China’s exports fell by 39.4%, Vietnam’s by 31.7%, the United States’ by 20.7%, the EU’s by 23.5%, and Japan’s by 4.8%.
Exports of memory semiconductors fell 53.9 percent to $2.92 billion after falling 57.3 percent in January, officials said, as shipments and unit prices fell due to a downturn in the semiconductor industry. In addition, exports of OLED and LCD displays continued to slump. OLED exports fell 39.3 percent and LCD exports fell 43.0 percent.
Source: Pixabay
Notably, exports of mobile phones, which rose 24.4% year-on-year in January, also declined, albeit by only 5.5%, while telecom equipment rose 0.8%. Affected by factors such as strong exports of mobile phone parts to China, South Korea’s exports of parts and components increased by 4.8%, but exports of finished products fell by 36.2% year-on-year.
According to reports, South Korea’s system semiconductor exports fell for the first time in 33 months in January, reaching US$2.69 billion last month, a year-on-year decrease of 25.5%.
However, South Korea’s ICT sector’s trade balance continued to be profitable at $1.82 billion, with imports by the ICT sector at $11 billion last month. In addition, the surplus widened from the previous month to only $890 million. With the decline of all export products, the share of ICT export value in all industries has dropped to 25.6%.
