Gross domestic product for the last quarter of 2018 was forecast to have expanded a seasonally adjusted 0.6 percent from the previous three months, unchanged from the third and second quarters in 2018, the median forecast from the survey of 10 economists showed on Friday.

The broad quarterly GDP trends underscored a challenging 2018 for South Korea, whose export-driven economy - like many other nations globally - has been shaken up by the Sino-U.S. trade war.

Exports from Asia's fourth-largest economy unexpectedly slipped in December, while overseas sales of memory chip marked their first fall since September 2016. Blaming fragile chip demands, global tech titan Samsung Electronics flagged a significant drop in its fourth quarter profit and warned of tough conditions ahead.

Analysts said companies will remain reluctant to invest in the face of slowing global demand and a cooling property market at home. Over the first and second quarters, investments in construction and plant stumbled.

"Chip makers have delayed facility investment in the face stagnant global trade, particularly in China, and this has dragged down domestic demand," said Lee Seung-hoon, an economist at Meritz Securities.

Government stimulus partly supported consumption, according to Chun Kyu-yeon, an analyst at Hana Financial Investment. "However, construction investment is expected to have contracted and stagnant facility investment would persist for a while."

On a year-on-year basis, median economic growth is estimated to have picked up to 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter, compared with 2.0 percent in the third quarter.

For the whole of 2018, 10 of 11 analysts are tipping the economy to have expanded 2.6 percent, missing the central bank's forecast at 2.7 percent, and below the 3.1 percent rate notched in 2017.

The pressure on the South Korean economy is expected to persist over this year, and likely keep the central bank sidelined after it raised rates in November mainly to contain a boom in parts of the nation's property market.

All 11 economists forecast growth this year would be slower than 2018, with five of the respondents picking it would be as low as 2.4 percent, compared with the finance ministry's 2.6-2.7 percent and central bank's 2.7 percent.

(Additional reporting by Joori Roh and Yuna Park; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

By Hayoung Choi and Choonsik Yoo