Trade & Export NowcastKorea customs export flows and Taiwan listed AI-chain monthly revenue filings on one terminal — reading the semiconductor and AI-infra cycle from customs and filing actuals
Korea's memory-export YoY (KOR→China/Vietnam, HS 854232) overlaid with the Taiwan AI-chain composite YoY — only the overlapping months, actuals with no estimation.
Customs & UN Comtrade actuals — export flows and the intramonth 10-day flash snapshot. A direction / relative-strength nowcast.
The memory cycle has flipped from volume-led to price-led. On the Korea->China memory corridor, value more than quadrupled while shipped weight actually fell - almost all of the gain is price.
Japanese chip-equipment exports are still negative over the last three months - even with prices soaring, the capex build cycle has not switched on. Supply discipline shows up in the hard data.
US imports of Taiwanese AI servers set a fresh monthly record. There is no sign the tariff pull-in has burned out - four straight months on a high plateau, then a new peak.
Through June 30, the customs read shows no trace of a slowdown. Korea's semiconductor export growth accelerated for six straight months. The worry is about future supply; customs speaks to present demand.
So the July 11 first reading is the first hard data since the July 2 sell-off. Whether Korea's July 1-10 flash extends or breaks June's momentum is judged against the pre-registered bands below.
Five core corridors — latest, YoY, MoM direction, and a 12-month sparkline
Semiconductors are 44% of all Korean exports. Six straight months of YoY acceleration.
China 32% + Vietnam 11% ~ nearly half the world memory corridor. ASP split in panel 2 below.
A fresh monthly record. No sign of tariff pull-in exhaustion (four months on a plateau).
Strong YoY + MoM plateau. Supply-limited, not demand slowing (optics: Lumentum, Fabrinet, Coherent).
The build cycle is still negative. A flip to positive YoY here is the capex-start signal (6-18 months ahead).
KOR→China/Vietnam memory (HS 854232). Value, weight, $/kg indexed to first month=100 — is it price or volume driving?
▶Methodology note — the mix trap in $/kg
Why only the memory corridor, not all semiconductors — the mix trap in $/kg
HS 8542 (electronic integrated circuits) splits by function — .31 processors & controllers, .32 memory, .39 other ICs. All are monolithic ICs, but their $/kg unit values differ by orders of magnitude.
So dividing total 8542 export value by weight produces a $/kg figure contaminated by product mix — a heavier shipment of low-value other ICs drags the average down regardless of memory prices, while a larger share of high-value memory sends it up.
That is why this nowcast isolates only the high-purity memory corridor (854232, KOR→China/Vietnam) to track ASP, rather than aggregating all of 8542.
Note: discrete power semiconductors, transistors, and diodes fall under HS 8541, not 8542.
Korea semiconductor (customs 10-day flash) intramonth cumulative + the July 11 decision bands
Semi intramonth cumulative — last 6 months ($B)
July 11 decision bands (pre-registered)
How many days customs led earnings — the start of an after-the-fact track record
Korea Customs product-level statistics split into value (P×Q), unit price (P), and volume (Q) — is this reversal price or volume?
| Item | Value ($mn) | Unit price ($/kg) | Volume MoM (derived) | Drag share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DRAM (excl. modules) | $13,545+21.0% | $91,931+23.0% | -1.6% | — |
| DRAM (incl. modules)double-count caution — superset of DRAM (excl. modules) | $21,226-3.0% | $67,970+14.0% | -14.9% | 14% |
| NAND | $1,781-28.0% | $61,751-1.0% | -27.3% | 15% |
| SSD | $4,512-13.0% | $25,072+19.0% | -26.9% | 15% |
| MCP (HBM) | $10,083-20.0% | $98,686+5.0% | -23.8% | 56% |