Korea's Chip Exports Tripled — Shipped Volume Rose 13%
South Korea's semiconductor exports rose 199% year-over-year in the first 20 days of August, reaching a record 47.2% of total exports. Divide that export value by the unit price customs data also reports, though, and the volume actually shipped rose by roughly 13% — a very different number than the headline suggests, and the gap between the two is where this data release gets interesting.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
1. Semiconductor exports hit $26.03 billion in the first 20 days of August, up 198.8% year-over-year and equal to 47.2% of all Korean exports — a record for the period, surpassing the previous mark set just two months earlier.
2. Reverse-calculating volume from value and unit price, memory export weight rose only 13.3% overall. DRAM volume grew 20.7% and MCP 15.8%, while NAND volume fell 17.0% and DRAM module volume fell 25.1% — even as all four posted triple-digit value growth.
3. Within the same month, DRAM and NAND unit prices moved in opposite directions: DRAM's per-kilogram export price fell 8.0% versus July even as DRAM export value rose 11.8% on volume, while NAND's unit price jumped 75.3%.
A Record With an Asterisk
Korea's Customs Service released its August 1–20 trade snapshot today, and semiconductors carried it: $26.03 billion in exports, up 198.8% from the same 20 days last year, equal to 47.2% of total Korean exports of $55.2 billion (itself up 56.0% year-over-year). Imports over the same period totaled $41.2 billion (+19.0%), leaving a $14.0 billion trade surplus. This extends a run that started in June, when semiconductors first crossed $25 billion for a comparable 1–20 window — this print breaks that record with two months to spare.
The same day's release also carries TRASS customs data broken out by memory product, which is the level of detail this post is built on — figures that don't typically show up in English-language coverage of Korean trade data. Total memory exports over the period reached $19.87 billion, up 312.5% year-over-year, with a per-kilogram unit price up 264.1%. DRAM alone reached $9.81 billion (+504.8%), NAND $1.75 billion (+400.3%), multi-chip packages (MCP) $6.85 billion (+170.1%), and DRAM modules $2.42 billion (+222.1%).
One caveat worth stating up front: these are preliminary, 20-day figures, not a full-month final tally, and the month-over-month comparisons below are against July's equivalent first-20-days window, not a calendar month. Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy publishes confirmed full-month numbers on September 1.
What the Weight Data Actually Shows
Export value and per-kilogram unit price are both in the customs release, which means volume — the actual weight of chips shipped — can be backed out by dividing one by the other. That division is the whole point of this post: value growth of 170–505% by product looks extraordinary, but almost all of it is priced in, not shipped.
Reverse-calculated weight for total memory rose 13.3% year-over-year. DRAM did better at 20.7% and MCP at 15.8%, but NAND volume fell 17.0% and DRAM module volume fell 25.1% — both declines, even as their export values rose 400% and 222% respectively. In other words, Korea is shipping meaningfully less NAND and fewer DRAM modules by weight than a year ago, and the entire value increase in those two categories is a pricing effect.
Why kg-Based Prices Run Hotter Than Contract Prices
A per-kilogram export price isn't the same thing as a memory contract price, and the gap between the two is easy to misread. Weight-based unit price bundles two effects together: the underlying price of memory, and how much capacity is packed into that same kilogram. HBM stacks multiple DRAM dies without adding much weight, and process shrinks plus stacking keep raising the bit density per kilogram across the board. When the product mix shifts toward higher-value memory, the per-kilogram price rises even if underlying contract prices hold steady.
That's visible in the contract-price data itself. TrendForce's tracked DDR4 8GB contract price rose 15–20% quarter-over-quarter in the third quarter — still rising, but decelerating sharply from 93–98% in the first quarter and 45–50% in the second. Export unit prices, meanwhile, are running at 264% year-over-year. Reading that gap as "memory prices are still accelerating" would be a misread — treating export unit price as a direct proxy for contract price overstates the pricing story.
The Items Are Telling Different Stories
Month-over-month figures (versus the equivalent 20 days in July) split sharply by product. NAND posted the largest move of the five categories: export value up 80.7%, unit price up 75.3%. Counterpoint Research separately reports that enterprise SSDs reached 48% of global NAND bit shipments in the second quarter of 2026, nearly double the 26% share a year earlier — a mix shift toward higher-value flash that's consistent with the price jump here. TrendForce has also flagged a further 20–25% increase in enterprise SSD contract prices for the third quarter.
DRAM moved the opposite way on a monthly basis: export value rose 11.8%, but unit price fell 8.0% — this month's DRAM growth was a volume story, not a price story. DRAM modules were the only category where both value (-21.9%) and price (-19.5%) fell together.
Per-kilogram price levels also vary far more within "memory" than the category label suggests: MCP at $105,740/kg, NAND at $99,573/kg, DRAM at $92,183/kg, and DRAM modules at just $31,323/kg. Modules trade at roughly a third of bare DRAM's per-kilogram price because substrates and connectors add shippable weight without adding proportional value — a reminder that unit-price comparisons only mean something within a consistent product category.
Zoom back out and the concentration risk is the other half of this story. China, the US, and Vietnam together accounted for 52.6% of total Korean exports over the period; US-bound exports alone rose 59.4% to $7.98 billion, while EU-bound exports fell 3.2% to $3.55 billion. With semiconductors now equal to 47.2% of total exports, and most of that increase running through price rather than volume, Korea's headline trade numbers have become more exposed to a single product's pricing cycle than the record-breaking framing in most coverage suggests.
What I actually watch
| Checkpoint | This release | Next confirmation |
|---|---|---|
| Gap to the full-month confirmed total | $26.03B for days 1–20 | Sept. 1 release from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy |
| DRAM unit price, month-over-month | -8.0% (first reversal in months) | Whether September's preliminary data makes it two declines in a row |
| NAND price strength | +75.3% MoM | Whether it tracks eSSD contract prices into Q3 |
| Reverse-calculated volume growth | Memory +13.3% | Whether it holds in the low double digits or breaks either direction |
Value chain read-through
| Segment | This data point | Read-through |
|---|---|---|
| DRAM (Samsung, SK hynix) | Value +504.8% YoY on price +401.0%, volume +20.7% | Both price and volume contributing — the strongest combination of the four |
| NAND | Value +400.3% YoY, but volume -17.0% | A pure mix/price story — eSSD share gains look like the driver |
| MCP (mixed logic + memory packages) | Value +170.1% YoY, volume +15.8% | The most balanced of the four — price and modest volume growth together |
| DRAM modules | Value +222.1% YoY but volume -25.1%; only category falling MoM on both value and price | The weakest read — YoY is a low-base effect, the MoM reversal is more current |
Risks to this view
▶ These are 1–20 day preliminary figures, not month-end confirmed totals, and the working-day count differs from a year ago (14.0 days versus 14.5) — comparisons will shift once September 1's full-month data lands.
▶ Weight-based unit price is highly sensitive to product mix. Using it as a direct read on memory pricing gets the direction right but can overstate the magnitude.
▶ Increases driven mostly by price tend to unwind quickly if price turns — the fact that reverse-calculated volume is only running in the low double digits is the flip side of that same structure.
▶ A 52.6% export share concentrated in three destination markets means a shock to any one of them would move the headline trade numbers disproportionately.
Add it up, and mid-August Korean semiconductor exports set a value record with most of the increase coming from price, not shipments — and DRAM and NAND moved in opposite directions within the same month. The next post checks how much of this preliminary read survives contact with September 1's confirmed full-month data.
Sources: Korea Customs Service (Aug. 21, 2026 release); TRASS, compiled by Meritz Securities Research; TrendForce; Counterpoint Research. Everything here is from public sources — links in the post.
Disclaimer: This post is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All investment decisions are your own responsibility.
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