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South Korea's exports hit a record $120.9 billion in September as chip sales jump 263%

Semiconductors alone accounted for $60.3 billion, almost half of everything the country sold, and the trade surplus reached $49.85 billion — the largest on record

By Redação RecortNews
The container terminal at the port of Busan, South Korea, in 2006. The port handles roughly 80% of the country's container cargo.
The container terminal at the port of Busan, South Korea, in 2006. The port handles roughly 80% of the country's container cargo.Photo: Niels Johannes/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

South Korea exported $120.94 billion worth of goods in September, up 83.5% on the same month of 2025 and the highest monthly figure in the country's history. The numbers were released on Thursday by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources.

Imports rose 26%, to $71.09 billion. The gap between the two produced a trade surplus of $49.85 billion, also unprecedented.

Almost half the export basket is chips

There is a single engine behind it. Semiconductor sales grew 262.8% to $60.3 billion, crossing the $60 billion mark for the first time. That means roughly half of everything South Korea sold abroad in September came from one category.

Two forces explain the jump, and they compound: shipped volume rose, and so did prices. The continued expansion of investment in artificial-intelligence infrastructure has pushed up memory-chip prices, and the country is the main global supplier of that type of chip.

Other items tied to the same cycle followed:

  • computers: +435.3%, to $7.00 billion
  • petroleum products: +72%, to $7.22 billion
  • cosmetics: +31.4%, to $1.51 billion
  • mobile phones: +23.4%, to $2.14 billion
  • petrochemicals: +5.1%, to $3.95 billion

Moving the other way, cars fell 5.5%, to $6.05 billion — the result of a month with fewer working days because of Chuseok, the Korean harvest holiday.

Where it went

Shipments rose to all the main destinations:

  • China: +123%, to $26 billion — the fourth straight month above $20 billion
  • United States: +137%, to $24.33 billion
  • ASEAN: +92.6%, to $21.29 billion
  • European Union: +20.9%, to $8.65 billion

One observation is worth making: an export basket in which a single product accounts for almost half the total, and whose price depends on how fast artificial-intelligence companies keep investing, grows quickly on the way up and is just as exposed if that spending cycle slows. September's record measures the strength of the moment, not its durability.

With information from the Korea Times, the Xinhua news agency and data from South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources.

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