South Korea’s semiconductor exports rose 331.2% from a year earlier to $16.63 billion in the first ten days of November, according to the Korea Customs Service figures reported by Money Today and News1. Total exports rose 111.9% to $33.5 billion, a record for the period.
Chips added about $12.8 billion of the $17.67 billion rise in total exports, by our arithmetic. That is about 72% of the gain from one product line. Semiconductors were 49.7% of all exports, up 25.3 percentage points from a year earlier.
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The key insight: Korea’s semiconductor exports rose 331.2% to $16.63 billion in the first ten days of November, per Korea Customs Service figures reported by Money Today and News1. By our arithmetic, chips added about $12.8 billion of the $17.67 billion rise in total exports, about 72% of the gain, and made up 49.7% of all exports.
Average daily exports, adjusted for working days, were $4.46 billion against $2.26 billion a year earlier, a 97.7% rise, Money Today reports. The daily averages imply about 7.5 working days this year against about 7.0 a year earlier, by our arithmetic; the reports do not state the count. The Yonhap flash gives the same 111.9% and 97.7% figures.
Computer peripherals exports rose 237.7% to $1.046 billion. Petroleum products rose 100.7%, wireless communication devices 35.1% and steel 38.8%, while passenger cars fell 4.3%. Exports to all ten main destinations rose: Malaysia 340.9%, Taiwan 182.5%, the US 163.6%, Singapore 154.4% and China 148.0%.
Imports rose 45.0% to $24.7 billion, with semiconductor imports up 101.3% and energy imports up 86.3%. The trade balance for the ten days was a surplus of $8.8 billion.
Year-on-year change in Korea’s exports and imports for 1-10 November 2026, by line, from Korea Customs Service figures reported by Money Today and News1 on 11 Nov 2026. The 72% share of the export gain is our arithmetic.
What Was Posted on X
SOUTH KOREA ๐ฐ๐ท SEMICONDUCTOR EXPORTS SURGE 331.2% Y/Y IN THE FIRST 10 DAYS OF NOVEMBER
Wall St Engine posted on 11 November at 00:02 UTC that South Korea’s semiconductor exports rose 331.2% year on year in the first ten days of November. The figure matches the Korea Customs Service release as reported in Korea; Money Today puts chip exports at $16.63 billion and News1 at $16.6 billion.
Wall St Engine posted the 331.2% figure shortly after the release. One of the two Korean reports we read, News1, carries a different chip figure in its sub-headline; its own body text and Money Today both give $16.6 billion and 331.2%, which we use.
The Structural Read
As we read it, one product line is now carrying most of Korea’s export growth: chips were about a quarter of early-November exports a year ago, by our arithmetic, and are now about half.
Money Today, reporting the Korea Customs Service release, 11 Nov 2026 (our translation)
“Semiconductor exports were $16.632 billion, up 331.2%, a record for 1-10 November”
Three Implications
FOR MEMORY MAKERS Customs data show chip exports up 331.2% in the first ten days of November, after a 259% rise for the full month of October.
FOR KOREA’S TRADE BALANCE Exports of $33.5 billion against imports of $24.7 billion left a ten-day surplus of $8.8 billion, per the release.
FOR READERS OF TEN-DAY DATA Average daily exports rose 97.7%, less than the 111.9% headline, because the period had more working days than a year earlier.
What Is Not Established
The customs release as reported does not split chips into memory and logic, or name HBM, so the data alone do not show which products drove the rise. Ten-day figures move with working days and shipment timing; the reports do not give the year-earlier chip total, so the $3.86 billion base and the 72% share are our arithmetic on the reported 331.2% and $17.67 billion figures.
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Korea’s chip exports rose 331.2% to $16.63 billion in the first ten days of November and, by our arithmetic, accounted for about 72% of the $17.67 billion rise in total exports, with chips now 49.7% of everything Korea ships abroad.
A note on sourcing. Figures come from the Korea Customs Service release on exports for 1-10 November 2026, published 11 November 2026 and reported in Korean by Money Today and News1; translations are ours. Shares, bases and differences are our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
