South Korean exports reach monthly record as AI chip demand surges
South Korean exports rose 83.5% year on year to a record $120.9bn in September, preliminary customs figures show. Chip shipments more than tripled to $60.3bn as demand for artificial-intelligence hardware strengthened, putting the country’s exports for the first nine months above its full-year 2025 total.
South Korea’s exports reached a monthly record in September as demand for semiconductors used in artificial-intelligence systems surged. Preliminary customs figures showed exports rose 83.5% from a year earlier to $120.9bn. The figure exceeded the previous monthly record of $102.25bn set in June.
Chip shipments accounted for almost half of September’s exports and increased by more than 260% to $60.3bn. Total exports for the first nine months reached $814.5bn, already above the $709.7bn recorded for the whole of 2025. South Korea recorded a trade surplus of $49.85bn during the first nine months of the year.
Trade and industry minister Kim Jeong-kwan called the result evidence of the strength of the country’s industries and companies. Kim said South Korea expected to achieve $1tn in annual exports but warned that growing protectionism and tensions in the Middle East remained risks. The country is benefiting from a global shortage of memory chips used in AI systems.
Its semiconductor industry includes SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, which together control about 80% of the global high-bandwidth memory market and 60% of the dynamic random-access memory market, according to Counterpoint Research. The export performance has accompanied strong economic and financial results. Nominal GDP growth reached 26.4% year on year in the second quarter, while the government forecasts real GDP growth of 3% in 2026.
The benchmark Kospi has risen nearly 60% this year, according to the supplied report.
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