Number of 'First-Time Exporters' Hit 5-Year High Last Year... Machinery and Computers Lead

The number of companies that recorded export performance for the first time last year reached a five-year high.

According to data, the number of first-time exporting companies—those that had no export record in the preceding three years among last year's exporters—stood at 19,746, marking a 3.7% increase from the previous year.

This is the largest scale since 2020, when the figure was 20,303 companies.

First-time exporters accounted for 76.1% of last year's newly entering exporting companies, which are firms that had no export record in the previous year but generated exports in the current year.

They accounted for 19.4% of all exporting companies.

The export value of first-time exporters rose 13.2% year-on-year to 6.9 billion dollars, recording the largest scale since 2019.

This accounted for 89.7% of the export value of newly entering companies and 1.0% of the total export value of all companies.

By product category, machinery and computers took up the largest share in terms of the number of companies at 10.9%, followed by electrical appliances at 8.5%, cosmetics at 7.0%, plastics at 6.7%, and automobiles at 5.6%.

In terms of export value, precious metals led with 26.4%, followed by automobiles at 19.9%, electrical appliances at 7.8%, machinery and computers at 7.0%, and optical instruments at 4.5%.

On average, each first-time exporter exported 1.4 product categories, and 72.2% exported only a single product.

The average export value per company was 350,000 dollars.

Eighty percent of the total, or 15,885 companies, had an export value of less than 100,000 dollars, showing that the vast majority of first-time exporters were small-scale exporting enterprises.

Export destinations spanned a total of 173 countries.

By number of companies, China accounted for the largest share at 14.0%, followed by the United States at 10.9%, Japan at 7.5%, Vietnam at 6.4%, and the European Union (EU) at 5.3%.

In terms of export value, the order was Hong Kong at 30.0%, China at 17.8%, Kyrgyzstan at 7.8%, the United States at 5.9%, and Switzerland at 4.2%.

On average, each first-time exporter shipped to 1.6 countries, with 80.7% exporting to just one country.

By region, the greater Seoul metropolitan area accounted for the largest share in both the number of companies at 70.4% and export value at 72.9%.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.