In November, the export amount of the information and communication technology (ICT) industry successfully exceeded $20 billion for four consecutive months. Although the cumulative export amount of semiconductors in November recorded an all-time high and drove growth, sluggish performance in displays and smartphones indicated a slowdown in the growth rate.
According to the Ministry of Science and ICT's November ICT trade trends, last month's exports amounted to $20.5 billion, marking four consecutive months of maintaining the $20 billion level since August. The growth rate compared to the same period last year was limited to 14.8%. The year-on-year growth rate, which was in the 30% range from April to July, dropped to the 20% range from August to October and fell to the 10% range last month. The cumulative export amount until November reached $212.4 billion, a 26.1% increase compared to the same period last year.
The trend of leading exports in semiconductors, computers, and peripherals continued last month. The export amount of memory semiconductors, driven by increased demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) due to expanded investments in artificial intelligence (AI) servers, increased by 52.0% to $7.96 billion. System semiconductors rose by 1.9% to $3.96 billion.
The overall export growth rate of semiconductors was 30.3%, marking 13 consecutive months of double-digit growth. The semiconductor export amount as of November reached $127.5 billion, breaking the all-time high. Exports of computers and peripherals surged by 98.6% to $1.15 billion, driven by increased demand for solid-state drives (SSD) for data center servers.
However, the export amount of displays decreased by 20.1% to $1.67 billion. Exports of mobile phones fell by 6.2% to $1.45 billion. Weak demand for components and other factors impacted the decrease in exports. Exports of communication equipment also decreased by 3.8% to $200 million.