According to statistics from the South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, South Korea’s semiconductor memory exports reached $8.8 billion in June, accounting for 65.8% of total semiconductor exports. This is the largest share of memory in semiconductor exports since December 2021.
As a “memory powerhouse,” the share of memory in South Korea’s semiconductor exports has remained above 60% from 2017 to 2021 for five consecutive years. In 2018, this ratio was at 74.2%.
Subsequently, as South Korean companies led by Samsung Electronics entered the system semiconductor field through wafer foundry (semiconductor manufacturing) business expansion, the proportion of memory semiconductors in South Korea’s semiconductor exports became relatively smaller. The proportion of non-memory semiconductors began to increase.
In 2022, the export shares of memory and non-memory were 57.1% and 42.9%, respectively; last year they were at 52.1% and 47.9%.
In this context, it is interpreted that the reason for refocusing on memory areas in South Korea’s semiconductor exports is due to rapid recovery in memory exports while growth in non-memory sectors led by foundries has been relatively slow.
Looking at trends in semiconductor exports for June, the total semiconductor export value was $13.42 billion with a month-on-month growth rate of +50.9%, reaching a historical high.
Due to booming demand driven by artificial intelligence including HBM (High Bandwidth Memory), memory exports increased by +85%, reaching $8.8 billion; system semiconductors’ export grew by +9%, reaching $4.1 billion.
Apart from market demand recovery, sales of high-value memories and rising product prices are also supporting the rapid recovery of memory exports.
With an expanding AI market leading to increased sales volume for high-value memories like HBM, average selling prices (ASP) for DRAM and NAND have also seen an increase.
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