Originally published on The Daily Flare.
Key Takeaways
- Hong Kong leads chip exports at $220 billion.
- Taiwan ($165B) and China ($160B) follow.
- Hong Kong's re-export hub tops the semiconductor trade.
Hong Kong exported $220 billion worth of semiconductors in 2024, making it the largest semiconductor exporter in the world, according to UN Comtrade trade data. Taiwan ($165 billion) and China ($160 billion) follow in a ranking where East Asia dominates completely, the top six exporters are all in the region.
The headline needs one immediate clarification: most of Hong Kong's semiconductor trade is re-export. Chips arrive from manufacturers across Asia, pass through the territory's free-port logistics system, and leave for buyers elsewhere, with each pass counted as both import and export. The figure says less about Hong Kong making chips than about Hong Kong moving them. Still, that movement is the physical backbone of the global electronics supply chain, and the numbers reveal where the industry's real manufacturing power sits.
Top 10 Semiconductor Exporting Countries in 2024
| Rank | Country | Semiconductor Exports (2024) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hong Kong | $220B |
| 2 | Taiwan | $165B |
| 3 | China | $160B |
| 4 | South Korea | $120B |
| 5 | Singapore | $119B |
| 6 | Malaysia | $77B |
| 7 | United States | $51B |
| 8 | Japan | $32B |
| 9 | Vietnam | $32B |
| 10 | Philippines | $23B |
Source: UN Comtrade, semiconductor exports 2024 (including re-exports).
Taiwan's $165 billion is the number that matters most. TSMC, headquartered in Hsinchu, holds roughly 70% of the global chip foundry market and makes the most advanced processors on earth, the chips inside Nvidia's AI accelerators and Apple's devices. Taiwan's exports of integrated circuits alone were worth $184 billion in 2022, nearly a quarter of the island's GDP, and the semiconductor industry there remains the single most strategically important industrial cluster in the world.
South Korea's $120 billion rests on a different pillar: memory. Samsung and SK Hynix dominate DRAM and NAND flash production, and Korea has turned memory chips into one of the great industrial success stories of the last forty years. Malaysia at $77 billion shows the other half of the industry (assembly, packaging and testing) where the country has quietly built world-class capacity that complements Taiwanese and Korean fabrication.
China's $160 billion, sitting between Taiwan and Korea, reflects both its real manufacturing base and its role as the world's electronics assembly floor: chips flow into Chinese factories and finished components flow out. Vietnam ($32 billion) and the Philippines ($23 billion) are the rising entries on the list, picking up packaging and assembly work as companies diversify supply chains across Southeast Asia.
America's Quiet Position
The United States sits seventh with $51 billion, respectable, but far below the East Asian leaders. That ranking understates American power in the industry, because the US dominates chip design (Nvidia, Qualcomm, AMD, Intel) and chipmaking equipment while outsourcing the fabrication itself. American companies capture a huge share of the profit while the physical exports register elsewhere. That is exactly the imbalance that has driven the CHIPS Act and the wave of fab construction in Arizona and Ohio: Washington wants more of those exports to leave from American ports.
What to Watch
The semiconductor trade map is being actively rewritten by policy. Export controls on advanced chips, China's push for self-sufficiency, and the construction of new fabs in the US, Japan and Europe mean the 2024 ranking may look quite different in five years. Vietnam and Malaysia are the countries to watch for the fastest climb. The underlying trade data is available from UN Comtrade, which publishes the bilateral trade statistics this ranking is built on.
Data compiled from UN Comtrade 2024 semiconductor export figures. Figures include re-exports, which is why major trading hubs rank near the top.
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