Korea’s ICT exports in March rise 8.9% to $17.4 billion

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced on April 14 that outbound shipments of Korea's information and communications technology (ICT) goods in March increased 8.9 percent to USD 17.4 billion.

Imports of ICT products totaled $10.9 billion, and the trade surplus stood at $6.5 billion.

Exports of all major items experienced growth in March.

Chip exports gained 7.9 percent to $9.6 billion and recorded growth for nine straight months. Both memory chips (up 8.2 percent to $6.1 billion) and system chips (up 9.3 percent to $2.9 billion) increased.

Displays went up 2.9 percent to $1.7 billion. Liquid-crystal display (LCD) panels shrank 8.5 percent to $490 million, but organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels and parts expanded 32.9 percent to $840 million and 8.7 percent to $360 million, respectively.

Shipments of mobile phones increased 8.7 percent growth to $1.1 billion. Despite decreases in finished products (down 9.6 percent to $440 million), parts (up 25.4 percent to $670 million) such as camera modules experienced growth.

Those of computers and peripheral devices went up 6.7 percent to $1.3 billion. Auxiliary memory devices (up 7.6 percent to $918 million) such as solid-state drives (SSDs) led the expansion.

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