`Shares of Samsung Elec., Hyundai Motor Undervalued`

Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor are undervalued and thus the world’s most attractive stocks, a report released by Samsung Securities said yesterday.

The report said Samsung Electronics is the world’s largest global IT company in sales and is No. 3 in net profit, following Microsoft and IBM, though its price-earnings ratio is far weaker.

Bloomberg forecast that Samsung Electronics will lead the world in sales with 130 billion U.S. dollars this year, followed by IBM with 99 billion dollars, Microsoft with 60 billion dollars, and Apple with 45 billion dollars.

Samsung Electronics’ price-earnings ratio is 9.5, far lower than those of Apple (25.2), Microsoft (16.6), Intel (12.8), Hewlett Packard (12.7), and IBM (12.1).

Bloomberg also said Hyundai Motor will record the world’s largest net profit this year of 2.5 billion dollars. The automaker’s price-earnings ratio, however, is a mere 8.3, far lower than 34.3 of Honda and 18.3 of Volkswagen.

hyejin@donga.com