Continuous Slowness
The Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy announced on June 12 that South Korea’s ICT sector exports for last month decreased 9.9% from a year ago to US$13.13 billion with a year-on-year decline in exports from the sector continuing for eight months in a row.
Specifically, the exports of mobile phones and mobile phone components showed a decline of 16.6% and reached US$2.29 billion. The former and the latter fell 26.5% and 8.5%, respectively. Even the Samsung Galaxy S7 was not enough to turn the tables. The exports to the U.S. market increased by 10.6% year on year but those to China and Europe fell significantly to more than offset the increase.
Display panel exports dropped 24.7% to US$2.2 billion due to a sluggish demand and a supply glut triggered by Chinese suppliers. Semiconductor exports showed a decrease of 4.4% to total US$4.89 billion. Memory semiconductor exports rose by 7.4% but system semiconductor exports dropped by 25.6% for a decrease in demand.
Meanwhile, digital TV exports increased by 14.1% to US$360 million as the demands for high-end products such as ultra-HD TVs rose ahead of the Olympics in Brazil. The exports of computers and peripherals totaled US$590 million, down 0.7% from a year earlier.
Last month, the ICT sector’s total imports added up to US$7.05 billion, up 2.4% from a year ago. The trade surplus of the sector reached US$6.08 billion, equivalent to 85.9% of South Korea’s total trade surplus for that month.