South Korea's DRAM exports hit a record high of $33 billion in September.

September DRAM exports from South Korea hit a record $33 billion, Samsung's HBM import growth surpasses rivalsAccording to data from South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and trade statistics, in September 2026, South Korea's DRAM exports reached $33.26 billion, a year-on-year surge of 552%, maintaining rapid growth of over 200% for eight consecutive months. This boom was primarily driven by data center expansion and the adoption of intelligent AI agents, pushing the total monthly export value of memory products up 359% year-on-year to $54.073 billion, while solid-state drive exports also saw a sharp increase of 531%.Goldman Sachs predicts that the strong shipment momentum will drive Samsung Electronics (SEC) and SK Hynix's memory business revenues in the third quarter of 2026 to grow 428% and 305% year-on-year, respectively.Compared to the soaring overall memory exports, the shipment pace of the two industry leaders showed a significant divergence in the HBM sector. According to Goldman Sachs, by tracking imports of key Japanese packaging materials, they found that in the first eight months of 2026, imports of Japanese plastic films corresponding to Samsung Electronics' TC-NCF process grew substantially by 61% year-on-year, while Japanese epoxy resin imports for SK Hynix's MR-MUF process increased by only 4%. Although plastic film imports in August alone were down 33% year-on-year, the high cumulative growth over eight months indicates Samsung Electronics' high-bandwidth memory is accelerating deliveries to major clients and is rapidly closing the shipment gap with SK Hynix.To support the iteration of memory technology and capacity expansion, South Korea's semiconductor wafer manufacturing equipment imports in September rose 65% year-on-year to $2.828 billion, with cumulative imports in the third quarter up 92% year-on-year, showing that upstream capacity expansion remains strong. However, downstream demand has not fully recovered; display panel exports in September fell 10% year-on-year, with OLED affected by price cuts in the mobile sector and delayed launches of new devices, declining by 11%. If capital expenditure for AI data centers slows down or the recovery of traditional terminals remains sluggish, the balance of supply and demand for memory and the pace of Samsung Electronics' HBM capacity release will be the most crucial variables going forward.