SEOUL: Shares in Samsung Electronics rose more than 3 per cent on Thursday after talk that the world's No.1 memory chip maker would announce share buyback plans at Friday's scheduled quarterly results announcement.

"There is a good chance that Samsung Electronics will unveil share buyback plans tomorrow, as their share prices have suffered steep falls during the latest bearish run," said Suh Do-won, an analyst at Hanwha Securities.

Shares in Samsung, also the world's leading LCD display maker and No. 2 mobile phone manufacturer, had fallen more than 20 per cent since mid-May as of Wednesday's closing. They were up 3.41 per cent to 607,000 won by 0233 GMT, leading the wider market's per cent gain.

"The buyback size will likely be around 1 trillion won ($991 million)," Suh added. A Samsung spokesman said he was aware of the market talk, but declined to comment. The company last bought back shares between January and March 2007, when the purchases totalled 1.82 trillion won. Samsung, along with other chip makers, has suffered a prolonged downturn in the memory chip industry and also faces a slowing global economy, which could hurt its flat-screen TV and high-end mobile phone sales.

Samsung's second-quarter net profit is forecast to jump more than 60 per cent to 2.3 trillion won, boosted by robust flat-screen and mobile phone earnings.