On November 1, data released by South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy showed that October exports continued their strong growth: total exports reached US$115.3 billion, up 76.1% year over year on a working-day-adjusted basis, while chip exports hit US$56.4 billion — a staggering 259% year-over-year surge — standing as the second-highest month on record after September’s all-time high of US$60.3 billion. At a moment when global tech stocks have been roiled by doubts over the returns on AI capital expenditure, this dataset stands as the most weighty “official endorsement” of semiconductor momentum.
On an unadjusted basis, October exports grew 93.7% year over year while imports rose 36%, delivering a trade surplus of US$42.5 billion. By category, computer exports jumped 497%, with petroleum products and automobiles up 80% and 18% respectively; by destination, exports to China grew about 134%, exports to the United States rose 186%, and exports to the EU and India increased 56.4% and 84%. For January through October, cumulative exports reached US$930 billion — the first time in history the country has crossed the US$900 billion line, after annual exports only passed US$600 billion in 2018 and set a record US$709.3 billion last year. South Korea’s Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy said the country is on track to cross the US$1 trillion annual export mark in November, adding that “this target is now essentially certain.”
From an industry-landscape perspective, this data is direct evidence of the AI semiconductor super cycle transmitting into the macro economy: at the very moment when Amazon’s and Intel’s results fell short and markets began questioning the returns on AI capital spending, memory and compute chips answered with a 259% year-over-year growth rate. Behind semiconductors becoming South Korea’s number-one export engine lies the top-down transmission of the HBM and DRAM supply-demand gap along the industry chain — the industry narrative of memory makers running at full capacity, raising prices and signing long-term agreements is turning into real shipments in customs statistics. For the global electronics supply chain, it means that through 2027, memory and controller chip supply security and cost volatility will be the central variables in system vendors’ supply-chain planning.
Facing the memory super cycle, Junyi Microelectronics is positioning on both the product and supply-chain fronts: the J-3568/J-3576/J-3588 core boards, K-series edge AI motherboards and AI-BOX-3588 edge computing host apply a multi-supplier memory strategy in BOM management, using advance stocking to smooth the impact of price swings on delivery; the 5G-EDGE-3399Pro edge computing host, IPC-i5-1235U industrial mini PC and touch-panel all-in-one product lines evaluate memory cost curves at project inception to help customers lock in system costs. The memory cycle is industry-wide, but delivery certainty is something a vendor can earn for itself — turning supply-chain capability into product competitiveness is precisely Junyi’s long-standing engineering approach.
Source: https://finance.eastmoney.com/a/202611013917765873.html (November 1, 2026)