[Anchor]

South Korea's exports last month reached 98.9 billion dollars, marking the second-highest performance on record following the previous month's all-time high. Semiconductors once again led the export growth, surpassing 40 billion dollars for the second straight month.

Reporter Min Gyeongho has the details.

[Reporter]

Our country's exports last month stood at 98.99 billion dollars.

This represents a 62.8 percent increase compared to the same period last year, marking the second-highest monthly record in history, following June's figure when monthly exports surpassed 100 billion dollars for the first time ever.

Semiconductor exports drove the momentum, surging 178.8 percent to 41.01 billion dollars—the second-highest monthly figure on record. The trade surplus also exceeded 30 billion dollars, following the previous month.

Analysts attribute this to the continuation of price uptrends, despite unfavorable factors such as news that Apple might use Chinese memory semiconductors and higher-than-expected performance from China's new AI model.

Exports across all IT product categories also posted positive growth.

Computer exports skyrocketed 404 percent to 4.79 billion dollars driven by increased demand for enterprise SSDs; wireless communication device exports rose 51 percent to 1.81 billion dollars backed by strong sales of premium products like the Galaxy S26; and display exports reached 1.61 billion dollars, supported by the exclusive supply of new iPhone components.

In addition, exports in 19 out of the top 20 key export categories, excluding home appliances—including automobiles, ships, petroleum, and steel—were shown to have increased.

By region, exports to China surged by more than 96 percent, and exports to the United States grew by nearly 70 percent.

Exports to the Middle East, which had been on a downward trend due to the impact of the Middle East war, turned to an upward trend for the first time since January.

[Video Editing: Kim Jong-tae]