Korea in Numbers

Korean Chips in Numbers

Semiconductors are South Korea's biggest export, and two Korean firms make most of the world's DRAM memory. Here are Korean chips in numbers.

$173.4 billion

of chip exports in 2025, a record

South Korea's semiconductor exports rose 22.2% in 2025 to the highest level ever, according to the trade ministry.

24.4%

of all South Korean exports were chips in 2025

Chips were $173.4 billion of $709.7 billion in total exports, the first year South Korea's exports passed $700 billion.

64.3%

of world DRAM revenue went to two Korean firms

In April–June 2026, Samsung (삼성전자) ranked first in DRAM memory chips with 39.4% of global revenue and SK hynix (SK하이닉스) second with 24.9%, according to TrendForce.

$46.7 billion

of chip exports in August 2026 alone

That was a monthly record, up 209% from a year earlier.

$280 billion

of chip exports in January–August 2026

In eight months, chip exports passed the full-year record of 2025 ($173.5 billion in this count). Figures for 2026 are provisional.

11 times

as much in chip exports as in 1996

Chip exports grew from $15.2 billion in 1996 to $173.5 billion in 2025, in current dollars, not adjusted for inflation.

South Korea's semiconductor exports

Unit: US$ billion. ICT export statistics (IT산업별/월별 수출 현황), Ministry of Science and ICT, via KOSIS OpenAPI: orgId 127, tblId DT_092_115_2009_S023, objL1 13102131003A.AF11100000 (반도체), prdSe M. Monthly values in US dollars are summed by year and shown in billions, rounded to one decimal. This count can differ slightly from the trade ministry's headline figure, which uses a different product grouping. Fetched 2026-10-04; table last updated 2026-09-17.

Data table

Year	US$ billion
1996	15.2
1997	17.1
1998	17.0
1999	18.8
2000	26.0
2001	14.2
2002	16.6
2003	19.5
2004	26.5
2005	30.0
2006	33.2
2007	39.0
2008	32.8
2009	31.0
2010	50.7
2011	50.1
2012	50.4
2013	57.1
2014	62.6
2015	62.9
2016	62.2
2017	99.7
2018	128.1
2019	95.2
2020	100.3
2021	128.7
2022	130.9
2023	99.7
2024	142.1
2025	173.5

All sources for the numbers on this site

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