Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) and the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) announced today that Korea’s exports and imports of information and communications technology (ICT) goods for the month of May 2025 advanced 9.6 percent and 0.5 percent year-on-year, respectively, to USD 20.9 billion and $11.5 billion. The trade balance stood at a surplus of $9.4 billion.

It is significant that ICT exports reached record highs for the month in spite of recent global trade uncertainties.

By item, exports of semiconductors (up 21.2 percent), mobile phones (up 2.8 percent), computers/peripherals (up 1.7 percent), and communication devices (up 10.2 percent) achieved gains, whereas those of displays declined (down 17.5 percent).

Semiconductor exports rose as fixed prices of major items like DRAMs and NAND flash rebounded and high value-added memory chips like HBMs and DDR5s retained strong growth momentum. Mobile phones expanded on the backs of demand for finished smartphone products and computers/peripherals increased in step with revived demand for solid-state drives (SSDs). Exports of communication devices were driven by rising demand for automotive communication systems in the U.S. and 5G equipment in India. In contrast, displays were negatively affected by trade uncertainties and sluggish global demand.

By region, Korea’s May ICT exports increased to destinations like the U.S. (up 7.2 percent), Vietnam (up 15.7 percent), EU (up 1.5 percent), and Japan (up 12.5 percent), while those to China (including Hong Kong) (down 6.8 percent) contracted.

Meanwhile, the uptick in ICT imports was led by items like computers/peripherals (up 37.4 percent), powered by AI-driven demand for datacenter GPUs (up 51.1 percent) as well as midrange and mainframe computers (up 130 percent).