Korea Customs Service: South Korea's chip exports in October 2022 were US$5.28 billion, down 29.4% year-on-year

As an important pillar of South Korea, the amount of chip exports is directly related to the revenue of several major conglomerates, such as Samsung, SK Hynix, etc.

According to foreign media reports, the decline in demand for consumer electronics has led to a decline in demand for chips, especially memory chips, with both demand and prices falling. The latest data released by the Korea Customs Service shows that in the first 20 days of November, South Korea's chip exports were US$5.28 billion, down 29.4% year-on-year.

In addition to chips, South Korea's important export products also include mobile devices such as smartphones, but the export value of this type of products in the first 20 days also fell by 20.6% year-on-year to US$1.36 billion.

A more iconic phenomenon is that the world's largest smartphone company has been continuously cutting orders, at least to 30 million units, which is also a direct reflection of the weak demand for consumer electronics.

There is also the memory chip. The price keeps dropping, but there are still not many people buying it, which also brings an impact to Samsung and SK Hynix.

According to Hynix, the price of DRAM chips used in devices and servers fell by about 20% in the third quarter compared with the second quarter, and the price of NAND flash memory chips used for data storage fell by more than 20%.

Hynix predicts that the industry will continue to be oversupplied in the short term, and considering this, the company has decided to reduce capital expenditure next year by more than 50% compared with this year. This year's investment scale is expected to reach the upper limit of the range of 10 trillion to 20 trillion won.

At the end of last month, Micron, a major US memory manufacturer, released its dismal Q4 2022 financial report (ending September 1, 2022) and full-year 2022 financial report, and expressed extremely pessimistic expectations for the next fiscal quarter.

Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said that customers from all walks of life are cutting orders and reducing previously accumulated chip inventories, and the current chip industry is "in a difficult situation" in terms of pricing. Mehrotra also said that future memory chip demand and company operations will face more serious difficulties, so the company will cut investment plans, including reducing capital expenditures on wafer fab equipment by nearly 50% compared to last year.

In addition, Samsung has recently warned that it is facing a more severe market situation as demand for personal computers and smartphones has weakened further than expected, causing data center and consumer technology customers to cut orders and increase inventory.

Zikuai Technology