Seoul stocks opened higher Friday, tracking overnight gains on Wall Street boosted by a decrease in the number of jobless claims in the world's top economy.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 21.9 points, or 1.14 percent, to 1,950.51 in the first 15 minutes of trading.

Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average moved up 0.89 percent on data that 3.16 million Americans had applied for unemployment benefits last week, down 677,000 from a week earlier.

The figure, however, still exceeded the market's expectation of 3.05 million.

Better-than-expected exports data from China also improved investor sentiment.

In Seoul, market kingpin Samsung Electronics rose 0.72 percent, and No. 2 chipmaker SK hynix gained 1.46 percent. LG Electronics climbed 0.73 percent.

Leading pharmaceutical firm Samsung BioLogics moved up 4.59 percent, and Celltrion added 1.72 percent. Hanmi Pharmaceutical rose 5.79 percent.

Top online portal operator Naver increased 0.7 percent, and its smaller rival Kakao climbed 0.73 percent.

The local currency was trading at 1,218.30 won against the US dollar, up 6.7 won from the previous session's close. (Yonhap)