South Korea’s exports nearly doubled in October from a year earlier, beating market expectations and recording the sharpest jump in more than 50 years, trade data showed on Sunday.
Exports from Asia’s fourth-largest economy, widely watched as a bellwether for global trade, rose 93.7% last month to $115.28 billion. That was slightly above the median 93.2% rise forecast in a Reuters poll of economists, and comfortably ahead of September’s 83.7% gain. It was the strongest increase since January 1974.
The headline figure was helped by a favourable calendar effect, with more working days in October because of the timing difference in local Chuseok holidays. Even allowing for that distortion, the underlying story was one of exceptional demand for the technology at the heart of the AI boom.
Overseas sales of semiconductors jumped 259.4%, the trade ministry said, as both prices and volumes remained high amid continued facility investment by global big tech firms competing for leadership in artificial intelligence. Computer sales surged 496.6% on increasing server demand for AI services, a sign of how rapidly data-centre building is feeding through to export orders.
The figures underline South Korea’s central position in the global technology supply chain. Its chipmakers and electronics firms supply the components and hardware on which AI systems depend, so a surge of this scale is read well beyond Seoul as a gauge of worldwide technology demand.
Imports also rose sharply, by 36.0% to $72.78 billion, after a 26.0% increase in September. That was the biggest annual increase in imports since January 2022, reflecting both stronger domestic demand and the inputs needed to sustain the export boom.
The country’s monthly trade surplus stood at $42.50 billion, narrower than the record $49.97 billion surplus recorded in the previous month. The narrowing surplus, despite the record export growth, points to how quickly import costs and volumes are also rising.
For policymakers and markets, the October data present a mixed signal. The scale of the export surge suggests AI-driven demand remains powerful, but the calendar effect means the underlying pace of growth is likely less dramatic than the headline rate suggests. The coming months will show whether semiconductor and computer orders hold at anything like these levels once the holiday timing effect drops out of the comparison.
Sources: Reuters — “South Korea exports nearly double in October, strongest growth since 1974” (1 November 2026), https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-exports-nearly-double-october-strongest-growth-since-1974-2026-11-01/
