Things are not looking so good in the country's export sector... and falling semiconductor shipments seem to be adding fuel to the fire.
Our Ko Roon-hee reports.
Semiconductors, display panels, and mobile phones.
These are the three products that drive South Korea's ICT exports.

And because of a fall in shipments in those categories,... the country's overall ICT exports slumped by 18-point-2 percent on-year in January.... topping out at around 14-point-5 billion U.S. dollars.
South Korea's ICT-related exports have been dropping on-year for three consecutive months now.

According to South Korea's trade ministry on Thursday, the biggest hit came from semiconductors exports,... which tumbled by more than 20-percent during the same period.
This comes as prices of memory chips such as DRAM fell over the past year.
Looking at the average spot price for a 4-gigabit DRAM chip, last month it was around 3 U.S. dollars,... lower than roughly five dollars a year earlier.
Analysts say the semiconductor market is suffering from oversupply and experiencing lower-than-expected demand from data centers.

Exports of other key items don't make pretty reading either.
South Korea's display panel exports fell by 12-point-7 percent and mobile phones by a whopping 30-point-8 percent...both due to rise in international competition, especially from Chinese manufacturers.

By export destination, shipments to China slumped by more than 30-percent...while exports to the U.S. jumped by almost 15-percent.

The South Korean government is painting a brighter picture for ICT exports in the coming months...as further data center expansion is expected in the second half of the year.
It also aims to advance the ICT industry overall...by pushing major export items other than semiconductors... and supporting small and mid-sized firms in the sector.
Ko Roon-hee, Arirang News.