Recovery
The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning announced on May 11 that Korea’s mobile phone exports increased 8.3 percent from a month ago and decreased 4.7 percent from a year ago to US$2.33 billion last month.
Smartphone exports showed a month-on-month increase to US$760 million. Component exports went up while the export of finished goods declined. In particular, the export of finished goods to the United States, one of the major markets for Korean handset manufacturers, dropped 58.3 percent to US$380 million, as Apple’s large-screen phones took up as much as 44.4 percent of the market.
The mobile phone component exports totaled US$1.56 billion with the local production of low-end smartphones in overseas manufacturing bases on the rise. The exports to China and Hong Kong reached US$850 million and the exports to Vietnam soared by 145.5 percent to US$450 million. The ministry explained that the statistics showed that the focus of the business of Korean mobile phone makers is shifting toward the export of components to those manufacturing bases abroad.
In the meantime, mobile phone imports increased 50.6 percent year on year to US$740 million in April. The rise was led by the iPhone and the re-importation of mobile phone components.