Things are not looking so good in the country's export sector... and falling semiconductor shipments seem to be adding fuel to the fire.<br />Our Ko Roon-hee reports. <br />Semiconductors, display panels, and mobile phones.<br />These are the three products that drive South Korea's ICT exports. <br /><br />And because of a fall in shipments in those categories,... the country's overall ICT exports slumped by 18-point-2 percent on-year in January.... topping out at around 14-point-5 billion U.S. dollars.<br />South Korea's ICT-related exports have been dropping on-year for three consecutive months now.<br /><br />According to South Korea's trade ministry on Thursday, the biggest hit came from semiconductors exports,... which tumbled by more than 20-percent during the same period.<br />This comes as prices of memory chips such as DRAM fell over the past year.<br />Looking at the average spot price for a 4-gigabit DRAM chip, last month it was around 3 U.S. dollars,... lower than roughly five dollars a year earlier. <br />Analysts say the semiconductor market is suffering from oversupply and experiencing lower-than-expected demand from data centers. <br /><br />Exports of other key items don't make pretty reading either. <br />South Korea's display panel exports fell by 12-point-7 percent and mobile phones by a whopping 30-point-8 percent...both due to rise in international competition, especially from Chinese manufacturers.<br /><br />By export destination, shipments to China slumped by more than 30-percent...while exports to the U.S. jumped by almost 15-percent. <br /><br />The South Korean government is painting a brighter picture for ICT exports in the coming months...as further data center expansion is expected in the second half of the year.<br />It also aims to advance the ICT industry overall...by pushing major export items other than semiconductors... and supporting small and mid-sized firms in the sector.<br />Ko Roon-hee, Arirang News. <br />
