It is expected that the Korea industry will be generally sunny but cloudy for some sectors in 2018, the Year of the 'Golden Dog' according to the Chinese Zodiac system.
It is a dominant view among experts that the semiconductor industry which represents Korea will continue to enjoy a boom this year after last year. On the other hand, many experts say that the Korean automobile industry will face difficulties due to the renegotiation of the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) among others. The Korean chemical industry has made a great advance last year but many experts say that its progress will falter or slow down this year. The Korean shipbuilding industry is expected to struggle this year, continuing from last year, due to the prolonged order cliff.
Semiconductor Industry Expected to Continue to Grow
The semiconductor industry was the main player that took the lead in the Korean industry last year. According to the Ministry of Science and ICT, Korea's semiconductor exports ran to 88.3 billion US dollars by the end of November, up 56.6% from the same period of last year. Strong exports of semiconductors drove up the volume of semiconductor trade above US$1 trillion in three years since 2014.
According to a survey by IHS Markit, Samsung Electronics rose to first place in global semiconductor sales by dethroning Intel which had kept the No. 1 spot in 25 years. By the third quarter, Samsung Electronics enjoyed a global market share of 14.5 percent, generating sales of US$16.53 billion. Intel chalked up a turnover of US$15.879 billion with a 13.9 percent market share. SK Hynix also made great strides. SK Hynix recorded a share of 6.2 percent in the global market by the third quarter with sales of US$7.084 billion.
The semiconductor industry is expected to continue to enjoy a boom this year, continuing from last year. This is because as demand will be able to spike when supply growth is limited, semiconductor prices may jump. However, as DRAM and NAND flash prices went up as high as they could, last year, it cannot be ruled out that the causes of hikes in semiconductors of the year will hardly pull up semiconductor prices a great deal.
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