According to data released by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on May 1, South Korea’s exports in April were US$48.86 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 2%; imports were US$44.74 billion, a year-on-year increase of 2.4%. Affected by the decline in the unit price of semiconductors, the export volume has decreased.

Picture from Samsung
Picture from Samsung

   The unit price of semiconductors ushered in a sharp drop. Among them, the price of DRAM (8 GB) fell by 51.6% from a year ago, and the price of NAND flash memory (128 GB) fell by 27.2%. Coupled with the general downturn in the global smartphone market, South Korea’s semiconductor exports in April were 8.455 billion US dollars, a decrease of 13.5% from a year ago. The head of the Korean Ministry of Industry, Cho Inu, explained: "Semiconductors were the main reason for the decline in exports in April. After excluding semiconductors, exports increased by 0.8% this month."

The semiconductor industry encounters a major crisis South Korean exports have shrunk for 5 consecutive months!

Samsung recently announced its financial report for the first quarter of 2019. The financial report showed that due to the weak sales of memory chips and screens, Samsung Electronics’ revenue in the first quarter of 2019 was 52.4 trillion won (approximately US$45.181 billion), a year-on-year decrease of 13.5%; net profit It was 5.04 trillion won (approximately US$4.346 billion), a decrease of 56.9% year-on-year, of which semiconductor business revenue was US$3.54 billion, and revenue fell 64%.