More than a third of South Korea's listed companies experienced "earnings shock" in the fourth quarter, underperforming market expectations that were already low, a local corporate tracker said Sunday.

According to FN Guide, 20 of the 55 listed companies that filed earnings reports for the October-December period as of Jan. 30, or 36.36 percent, suffered lower-than-anticipated earnings.

Only 12, or 21.82 percent, did better than expected for an earnings surprise.

Brokerages generally classify earnings exceeding market consensus by more than 10 percent as an earnings surprise, while the inverse is referred to as an earnings shock.

The market tracker said most of the earnings shocks were in auto, construction and steelmaking companies.

Kia Motors Corp., the country's No. 2 carmaker, reported operating profits of 500.5 billion won ($456.7 million), 54 percent less than the forecast 670.8 billion won.

POSCO, one of the leading steelmakers in the world, listed its quarterly earnings at 764.4 billion won, compared to 952.2 billion won estimated by investors and securities firms.

Samsung Heavy Industries, a top-tier global shipbuilder, reported operating profits of just 101.6 billion won, 43 percent shy of the 178.4 billion won estimated.

Besides these companies, fixed-line operator KT, Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance, LG Chem, and Hyundai Wia all failed to meet market expectations in terms of performance in the October-December period.

Companies that underperformed in the three-month period were export-oriented companies and those that were affected by a sharp drop in international crude oil prices, although not every business was affected equally, FN Guide said.

On the other hand, many affiliates belonging to LG Group, such as LG International Corp., LG Life Sciences, LG Hausys and LG Uplus Corp. actually exceeded expectations by considerable margins.

In addition, Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Nexen Tire Corp. reported earnings surprises exceeding 20 percent of their original forecasts in the last quarter.

Samsung Engineering Co.'s quarterly earnings topped the forecast by 70 percent to 21.9 billion won.

"The quarterly report showed service and businesses geared toward the domestic market generally doing better than exporters, which may be a reflection of South Korea's latest economic and business trend," said a local market watcher.

He, however, said while the percentage of companies reporting earnings shocks have been high, there was not much expectation to begin with so any fallouts on the country's stock market will be limited. (Yonhap)