South Korea's IT exports hit $13.1B in Jan

South Korea's IT exports in January this year reached US$13.1 billion, jumping 16.4 percent from the same period in 2012 for its fifth straight month of positive growth.

The increase also marked the largest year-on-year growth in 27 months, Yonhap News Agency reported Thursday, citing figures from the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.

Trade surplus in South Korea's IT sector last month widened to hit US$6.11 billion from a year earlier, because IT imports increased at a slower rate of 10.2 percent year-on-year to reach US$6.99 billion.

The ministry said January's IT exports showed positive growth for the fifth consecutive month thanks to increasing shipments of key products such as mobile phones, semiconductors and displays, buoyed by a recovering global IT market.

Shipments of mobile phone parts surged 78.6 percent to US$890 million, while shipments of mobile phones jumped 32.7 percent to US$1.91 billion from the year before. Smartphone shipments grew 8.8 percent to US$940 million in the same period, according to the ministry.

Semiconductor exports increased 7.2 percent year-on-year to US$4.04 billion--which crossed the US$4 billion mark for the sixth consecutive month, the ministry added.

China continued to be the world's biggest importer of South Korean IT products in January at US$6.54 billion, up 16.6 percent year-on-year.

Comparatively, IT exports to Japan dropped 20.7 percent to US$590 million.

As for the United States and European Union, shipments there grew 3 percent and 31.9 percent respectively to hit US$1.25 billion and US$1.13 billion.