61% of South Korea's memory now ships to Greater China
We mapped where Korea's memory chips actually go, using customs data. The concentration — and the near-total absence of direct US imports — is its own story.
South Korea makes the majority of the world's DRAM and HBM (Samsung + SK hynix). So where those chips ship is one of the cleanest reads on the AI hardware supply chain — and on where export-control pressure would bite.
We pulled South Korea's memory-IC exports (HS 8542.32) by destination. Of Korea's $72 billion in 2024 memory exports: China 35.8%, Hong Kong 25.4% (a re-export hub feeding the mainland), Other Asia incl. Taiwan 20.1%, Vietnam 10.3% (Samsung's assembly base) — and the United States 0.4%. Add China and Hong Kong together and ~61% is headed to Greater China.
The non-obvious part: the United States — the demand center of the AI boom — imports almost none of Korea's memory directly. That isn't a contradiction. Memory ships to where servers and devices are assembled (China, Taiwan, Vietnam), then reaches the US embedded in finished systems. Raw memory-IC customs data traces the manufacturing geography, not final demand — which is exactly why it leads the headlines instead of following them.
Sources and method
- UN Comtrade — South Korea memory-IC exports — HS 8542.32 (memories), reporter South Korea, exports by partner country, 2017–2024