Korea’s ICT Exports Mark Slump for Nine Straight Months

ICT exports, a main cash cow of Corporate Korea, are suffering from a prolonged slump, inking a drop for the ninth consecutive month.    

On July 14, the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning announced in a report titled “ICT Export and Import that Korea’s ICT exports had grown every year but in October of last year, edged down 1.6%. In April, the drop expanded 14.3%.

Last month, although they slid by a single-digit percentage of -5.1%, exports of cell phones, Korea ‘s long-time main export item continued to decline, making an outlook on ICT exports gloomy. Exports of handsets recorded this year’s first drop of 7.9% in April. The drop extended to 8.3% last month.   

In June, exports of handset parts stood at US$1.44 billion, up 13.4% from a year earlier. But exports of finished handsets reached US$ 620 million, a year on year drop of 36.5%.      

This is attributable to the fact that manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics ramped up the operation of overseas plants.

Exports of semiconductors which account for the biggest chunk of Korea’s ICT exports added up to US$5.26 billion in June, showing a year on year drop of 0.5%. Year on year, exports of semiconductors fell 14% in January, 12.8% in February, 1.9% in March, 11.8% in April and 4.4% in May.

Sluggish display exports continued. In June, Korea’s display exports reached US$2.12 billion, a drop of 24.4% from a year earlier. But exports of computers and peripherals grew 19% to US$ 690 million year on year thanks to secondary storage devices such as SSDs.    By countries, Korea exported US$ 1.21 billion’s and US$ 160 million worth of ICT products to Vietnam and India, up 20.1% and 37.7%, respectively from a year before.   

In the case of India, the start of a Korean manufacturer’s cell phone factory significantly contributed to the export increase according to industry watchers. Exports to China shrank 6.7% to US$ 7.14 billion while export to the EU sank 9.1% to US$ 76 million. Exports to the US edged down 2% to US$ 1.48 billion. 

Korea’s ICT imports stood at US$7.29 billion and Korea’s ICT trade surplus hit US$ 6.19 billion in June. In the meantime, in the first half of this year, Korea’s ICT exports fell 10.4% to US$ 76.39 billion year on year while Korea’s ICT imports inched down 2.4% to US$43.28 billion. So Korea’s ICT trade surplus stood at US$ 33.11 billion in the same period.