Top 10 firms' share of stock market value nears 45 pct

SEOUL, June 1 (Yonhap) -- The proportion of South Korea's top 10 market-cap firms to the total stock market value has risen this year to nearly 45 percent amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, data showed Monday.

Top-cap Samsung Electronics Co. and nine other large-cap companies accounted for 44.7 percent of the combined market capitalization of 789 issues traded on the main bourse Friday, according to the data from the Korea Exchange.

The figure was up 2.6 percentage points from Jan. 2, the year's first trading day, and 8.9 percentage points from Jan. 2, 2019.

The increase was attributed to a sharp rise in shares in biopharmaceutical and other "untact" companies amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Samsung Electronics, the world's No. 1 smartphone and memory chip maker, remained the top-cap company, though its market value edged down 0.4 percentage point to 23 percent over the cited period.

Chip behemoth SK hynix Inc. came second with a 4.5 percent share, down 0.4 percentage point from Jan. 2.

Top pharmaceutical firm Samsung Biologics ranked third with 3.1 percent, followed by internet portal leader Naver with 2.8 percent and another pharmaceutical giant, Celltrion, with 2.2 percent.

Leading automaker Hyundai Motor Co. placed 10th with 1.6 percent, down 0.2 percentage point from the start of this year.

The data also showed the top 15 companies took up 51.4 percent of the total stock market capitalization, up 2.5 percentage points from Jan. 2.
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