Seoul: South Korea's outbound shipments fell 10.3% from a year earlier to $49.1 billion in January.

According to Qatar News Agency, data compiled by South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy revealed that exports snapped their 15 straight months of annual increases in January due to a reduced number of business days from the extended Lunar New Year holiday.

Imports fell 6.4% on-year to $51 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of $1.89 billion, marking the first deficit in 20 months.

By sector, exports of semiconductors increased by 8.1% to reach $10.1 billion, marking the second-highest amount for any January. This was the ninth consecutive month that chip exports surpassed the $10 billion mark. The ministry attributed this performance to strong demand for premium products, such as high bandwidth memory chips and DDR-based memory, driven by a global expansion of investment in data centers and artificial intelligence.

Outbound shipments of computers, including solid state drives, also rose by 14.8% to $800 million, continuing a growth trend for the 13th straight month.

Conversely, exports of automobiles fell 19.6% on-year to $5 billion, as production was significantly impacted by the long holiday.