South Korea's exports jumped more than 30% year on year in October to the highest monthly value on record, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said on Sunday. Semiconductor shipments more than doubled on demand for artificial-intelligence memory chips. The figures are among the first trade data published for the month by any major economy and are watched closely as a gauge of global demand.

The ministry said chip exports set a fresh monthly record, led by high-bandwidth memory and server DRAM sold to data-centre operators in the United States and Taiwan. Memory prices have risen sharply through 2026 as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix shifted capacity towards AI products, tightening supply of conventional chips. Ministry analysts attributed most of the headline gain to higher unit prices rather than volumes.

The comparison was also flattered by the calendar. The Chuseok harvest holiday fell in early October last year, cutting the number of working days, while this year's holiday fell in late September. The ministry said average daily exports, which adjust for working days, still rose by a double-digit percentage.

The gains were uneven across industries. The ministry reported that shipments of steel and petrochemicals remained weak. Car exports to the United States were broadly flat as manufacturers absorbed US tariffs under the trade arrangement agreed between Seoul and Washington last year. Imports also rose, and the trade surplus widened from a year earlier.

The data are likely to strengthen the case at the Bank of Korea for keeping interest rates on hold, as robust exports offset sluggish domestic consumption. Investors will look for confirmation of the chip boom when Samsung and SK Hynix update on demand in the coming weeks, with the Kospi index already near record highs on the semiconductor rally.