South Korean shares opened higher Tuesday, tracking rallies on Wall Street that jumped ahead of corporate earnings announcements by major firms this week.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 25.84 points, or 1.16 percent, to 2,245.55 in the first 15 minutes of trading.

Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.86 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 3.43 percent as investors geared up for third-quarter corporate earnings of such big-name firms as Netflix and Tesla, Inc. this week.

In Seoul, most large-cap stocks opened higher.

No. 2 chipmaker SK hynix Inc. rose 0.1 percent, leading wireless services provider SK Telecom Co. climbed 1.5 percent, top carmaker Hyundai Motor Co. gained 1.5 percent, and state-run utility Korea Electric Power Corp. was up 0.9 percent.

Kakao Corp., the operator of the country's dominant mobile messenger app KakaoTalk, traded 1.5 percent higher after plunging 5.9 percent on Monday following nationwide service disruptions over the weekend due to a fire at its data center.

Among decliners, market bellwether Samsung Electronics Co. fell 0.2 percent.

The won was trading at 1,426.20 against the dollar, up 9.10 won from the previous session's close. (Yonhap)